


Little Prince

by Quiet_Shadow



Series: Little Prince [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Amputation, Captivity, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Gen, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:11:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4015819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiet_Shadow/pseuds/Quiet_Shadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Inside Job' AU;</p>
<p>A routine scan at the beginning of Smokescreen's captivity lead to a surprising discovery. And now that his newfound, previously unknown Creation is on his ship, Megatron will be damned if he will let him slide out of his grasp. Even if it means taking drastic measures to make him stay by his side...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dellessa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellessa/gifts), [thepheonixqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepheonixqueen/gifts).



“Redo the test, Knock Out.”

The red medic glanced at his deceptively calm leader, feeling wary. “My Lord, I’ve already done it five times -- at your insistence, I may add. The results haven’t varied the slightest. They clearly show…” he started to say, only to gulp and take a step back as Megatron’s intense gaze focused on him. “Right away, Lord Megatron,” the medic scrambled.

Sure, it might have looked cowardly, but he wasn’t an idiot, thank you very much. The news had rattled Megatron, and he knew better than to get on the Warlord’s nerves when he was in that kind of mood; getting shot might get him killed, and it would definitely mess with his finish. Honestly, the news had rattled him too, though he dared anyone to mock him.

Knock Out glanced at the prone form lying strapped down to the medical berth, unconscious. They had captured the Autobot to get to the last Omega Key, but the mech was turning out to be much more than a lead or the owner of said Key. Oh yes, so much more…

“Well, Knock Out?”

The medic almost jumped, silently cursing himself for getting distracted -- and cursing Megatron for startling him like that. With slow, deliberate gestures in order to let the Warlord see what he was doing and assure him there was no foul play, no trick, and that whatever results Knock Out’s scans showed were the genuine deal.

Just like the five previous times.

Carefully, he hooked his scanner to one of the unconscious Autobot’s medical port, the screen turned toward the looming Lord Megatron, and entered the right order to start scanning their prisoner’s systems. Funny. The first time he had started the scan, it was only to make sure the Autobot carried no virus in case he needed to dig into his systems for an interrogation. Then the unexpected results had showed up, linking the Autobot’s just downloaded datas to one precise file in the medbay’s computers, and Knock Out’s day had become much more stressful.

Data started to scrolls, from size, weight and upgrades status to Spark’s frequency. That was that last part which had left them all stumped. And, once again, the scan beeped as it linked and opened another file to the side for comparison. Knock Out didn’t smile; there was no point in doing so, since he already knew the results would be the same, again.

He just hoped Lord Megatron stopped being stubborn as a pig’o-tron now, because redoing the same thing again and again was getting tiresome. Not to mention, he still needed to find exactly where that Key was hidden!

The Key, however, seemed to have totally slipped Lord Megatron’s mind as he stared again, face blank.

Knock Out coughed. “My Lord? Are you satisfied with the results yet?” he asked carefully.

“No, I’m not,” the larger mech said blandly, and Knock Out winced, preparing to either dodge or redo his scan yet again. “However, I suppose it doesn’t matter.” His red gaze fell on the unconscious Autobot whose name they still ignored. He looked at him up and down, face unreadable until it broke into a scowl. “Damn you, Orion!” he suddenly bellowed, making a fist and hitting one of Knock Out’s machines, prompting the medic to yelp as he hurried over the inspect the damages.

“Lord Megatron, not my equipment! I need it!”

The Warlord paid him no mind. He leaned forward to get a better look at the strapped down Autobot, studying him before his shoulders sagged. “I see what I must do… Soundwave!”

The silent Communication Officer took a step forward from the corner of the medbay he had been laying in wait in. “Make the Vehicons prepare a room on deck 3; there is no shortage of abandoned officer quarters they can use. Reinforced doors, no communication systems, no terminal,” he added in a clipped tone. “Go supervise the beginning of the operations, and come back here as soon as you can.”

The silent mech nodded and saluted, turning on his heels and getting out as silently as he had arrived and stood until then.

“Knock Out!” The medic saluted. “Prepare your tools for surgery!”

The medic blinked. “What kind of surgery, my Lord?”

“Extraction,” Megatron said succinctly, never leaving the Autobot’s face out of his sight. Slowly, he raised a hand and reached out for him, his clawed digits lightly brushing against one cheek. Despite his unconscious state, the Autobot made a soft sound -- a strange mix of pain and relief. Megatron’s claws withdrew, though he continued to hover, even as Knock Out drew a tray next to the berth. Only then did he take a step back, optics still focused on the prone form. “Start with his T-Cog. Then you might have to prepare for amputation.”

“My Lord?” Knock Out asked, already taking out a laser scalpel.

“It’ll depends on our… ‘guest’ disposition upon waking up,” the Warlord merely stated. Knock Out watched him briefly before shrugging.

“As you wish, Lord Megatron.”

“Once you’re done, medic, wake him up.” The Warlord looked pensive for a moment before his face broke into a thin, joyless smile. “After all, it’s high time I properly welcome my Creation onboard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I did it; I actually wrote a fic with Smokescreen as Megatron and Optimus' kid. XD  
> And I'm going to be mean with Smokescreen, just to warn you -- though I've been more cruel with other characters before. ;)  
> The first chapter is short, but there'll be longer one coming, I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who commented and/or left a kudo! It pleases me to see you like this story so much, and I hope the second part (and the following ones) will be to your taste. :)

“Wakey wakey, little Prince.”

Smokescreen groaned, his systems slowly rebooting. His helm was killing him; what had hit him…? He blinked, unsure, and startled when he saw a very unwelcome face looming over him.

“Wh…?” Decepticon! He needed to get away, he need to run, he needed to…! He tried to move, but his wrists were held firmly in place by manacles, securing them flat against the medbay berth. At least he assumed the place was a medbay of sort, which did nothing the calm his rising apprehension. He glanced at his wrist, hoping to see the Phase Shifter, but it wasn’t there. Oh. Right. He had left it at the base. A trail of energon on his frame suddenly caught his attention, and with growing horror, he looked at a series of incisions in his frame, freshly welded. What had the ‘Cons…?

“I think you’re looking for this,” the Decepticon medic drawled, showing off… Smokescreen’s optics widened as he realized the ‘Con was holding his T-cog. They had stolen his T-Cog! Primus, this was bad; without T-Cog, he couldn’t transform and he couldn’t access his weapons! Slag, how was he going to manage to escape without…?

“Enough prattling, Knock Out!” Smokescreen almost shuddered. That voice… He looked to the side and his optics widened in alarm as he witnessed Megatron standing here. Slag. He really was fragged, wasn’t he?

The Warlord was watching him with an intensity which unnerved him. “What do you want, Megadork?” he said with as much bravado as he could. The Warlord didn’t seem impressed. His optics narrowed and his sharp dentas showed in a way that made Smokescreen extra nervous.

“Childish taunts. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, given your probable age, though I should teach you a lesson on respect, Youngling.” Smokescreen bristled; he wasn’t some kid! He was an Autobot soldier, trained by the Elite Guard! “As to what I want, Autobot, I want many things. Optimus’ broken frame at my feet. Cybertron under my control. The last of those Iacon relics we’re scrambling to get. I would start with your name, though.”

“Uh? My name? What would you like to know, Megad…?” Smokescreen started to say defiantly before being cut out by a snarl from the Warlord.

“Suffice with your attempts at taunting! I may have decided to spare you, but do not make the mistake of thinking I won’t deal with you in a painful manner should you prove yourself unable to hold your glossa,” he warned, optics flashing. Smokescreen wisely decided he’d better shut up. “Now, your name, Autobot.”

“... It’s Smokescreen, and don’t you forget it,” the captive Autobot finally groused, optics narrowed.

The Warlord tilted his head to the side, his optics half-shuttered as he repeated the name, as if tasting it. “Smokescreen… Hmm. Doesn’t sound like something Orion would have picked, nor I,” he mumbled.

Smokescreen blinked. “Orion? Who’s that?”

The Warlord’s attention focused back on him. “Don’t you know? I would have expected you to know your Carrier’s former designation. Of course, dear Optimus prefered to erase all traces of his old life,” he said dismissively.

“Uh, okay, I don’t know on what kind of drugs you are--” Smokescreen started, confused. What was that about Optimus? And Orion? That was frankly weird. “-- but I don’t know anyone named Orion. And a Carrier? I’m a war orphan, I don’t have one!” At least, not one he remembered. He had been pretty young when he had ended in a Youth Center, and said Center had been destroyed. He had ended being part of a refugee caravan which had travelled across Cybertron for thousand stellar cycles until they were taken in and protected by the Autobots.

“Oooh, is that what they told you? How cute,” the medic drawled from his position next to the berth. Smokescreen had almost forgotten about him. He looked at him quickly, Spark jumping slightly as he caught sight of the medical tray full of tools next to him, some still stained with Smokescreen’s own energon.

“It’s true!” Smokescreen growled, not sure why he was saying so much to Decepticons. He should have kept quiet, not said anything -- brave Autobots always held out against interrogators! Then again, it looked nothing like those interrogation sessions he had been prepared for briefly before being assigned to the Archives…

Megatron was looking at him again, looking most displeased. “So he was cowardly enough to give away our Creation?” he growled. His clawed fingers twitched, his hands tightening into fists, an almost animalistic snarl escaping his vocalizer. Smokescreen swallowed dryly. The mech was… scary. As suddenly as it had appeared, the Warlord’s fury disappeared, his features schooling themselves in a neutral expression. Still, his optics were watching Smokescreen with the same intensity.

He couldn’t help staring back, almost hypnotized. The Warlord wasn’t watching him with hatred, or anything he could have expected from the Autobots’ greatest enemy. Sure, there was irritation in his gaze and in his demeanour, but there was also something else, something Smokescreen couldn’t identify...

Wait a klik! Had he said something like ‘OUR’ Creation? As in, Megatron was implying he was a Creator? Wow. That was… processor blowing. Eh. Haha. That was ridiculous! Who would ever accept to frag with that piece of junk -- that psychotic piece of junk, he amended quickly? No matter. The Warlord seemed to operate under some wrong assumptions here, and Smokescreen was going to correct them straight away.

“What do you want with me?” he snapped, feeling his vents hit off. “I hope you aren’t under the crazy desillusion you and I might be related, ‘cause I can tell you right now we aren’t! I mean, we look nothing alike, to begin with, and I’m an Autobot, in case you’ve not noticed, not some big, crazy ‘Con, so there’s no way we have anything to do with each other!” And he was rambling, wasn’t he? But rambling felt safe.

“My, it seems our little Prince is in denial,” Knock Out chuckled as he watched Smokescreen babble -- he also took careful note of the way Megatrons expression had darkened at the Autobot’s frantic denial, and he took a step back, just in case.

“Don’t call me that! I’m not a Prince or anything!” Okay, the medic was clearly on the delusion. Or the joke -- because that sounded like a joke played at his expense. Perhaps a weird attempt at destabilizing him so he revealed ultra secret information without noticing. Well, congratulations, he had almost fell for it, he tried to rationalize, Spark beating fast.

“Keep telling yourself that, little mech, perhaps it’ll come true,” Knock Out taunted.

“Knock Out!” Megatron snapped, and the medic shut up. The Warlord came closer, his shadow falling over Smokescreen’s immobilized frame, his optics still shining with that weird, intense expression. “Delusion, is it, Youngling? I’m afraid the good Doctor can show you medical proof. Knock Out!”

“Right away, my Lord,” the red mech said suavely as he held out a scanner for Smokescreen to see. The large flat screen showed a mug shot of him, next to a wavelength he peered at curiously before frowning. That was a representation of his Spark’s frequency, he realized after a moment of analysis. “See that, Autobot? That’s your Spark. And now, see that one?” the medic said as he took a stylus and touched the screen. A second Spark wavelength appeared underneath Smokescreen’s own.

The Autobot looked at it and shrugged -- at least, as well as his bound hands allowed him to, which wasn’t much. “Yeah, so? What’s special about it?”

“Oooh, but a lot of things,” the medic said with exaggerated cheer. “You see, a Spark’s wavelength is normally unique; you won’t find two mechs with the exact same one -- aside of the rare Spark-Twins cases, and even then, there’s generally a few differences which --” Megatron growled, and Knock Out cut himself before coughing. “Anyway, a Spark’s wavelength is unique. Still, it always closely resembled the frequencies of its Creators, since a newspark is created by the merge of two compatible Sparks. You follow me?” Smokescreen grimaced, and the medic seemed to take it as a ‘yes’. “Now, here we have your wavelength. I’m not going to slide it over the other frequency.” With the point of his stylus, he moved the picture of Smokescreen’s superimposing it with the other.

There were… there were some peaks and drops which looked similar. Enough to be troubling. Smokescreen, however, took a bored look. “So what? I don’t see what it proves.”

“Quite a lot, little Prince,” Knock Out smirked. “See how the two mesh together? The scan has picked up a 75% similitude between the two frequencies. And before you ask, it doesn’t happen in two random mechs. So many comparison points can only appear between two related people. And so…” Knock Out’s stylus pressed on the screen, and a mug shot of Megatron appeared next to the second frequency. “Congratulation, Smokescreen. Looks like you found your Sire.”

For a moment, Smokescreen stood frozen, processor reeling. That was… that had to be a joke. A monstrous, tasteless joke! And Megatron was still watching him, with his neutral face but burning optics!

Slowly, he started to chuckled. It was nervous, and low, but it gradually started to become louder and more hysterical with each passing klik. “Hahahaha! Good one! You almost got it here! Me, related to Megatron! My Sire! Yeah, good one! Wow, I can’t believe you even dared to go there! Very, very good one… but so, so tasteless!” His laughter subsided and his optics hardened. “Now the fun is over, release me! Who do you take me for? An idiot?! Did you think I was going to fall for your tricks! Ah! As if! I’m an Autobot warrior, I’m not falling for such stupid lies! Come on, if you wish to lie, find something more believable! Now release me before Optimus Prime comes to kick your aft! Or better, so I can kick your afts myself before leaving that place! The company here is horrible, and they make poor jokes!”

Megatron’s expression stayed neutral, but he turned away. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind seeing your Prime myself; he has plenty of explanations to give me!” His voice was low, dangerous, and a chill went down Smokescreen’s spinal strut as he heard it. “As for what you’ve been told… Think what you wish, Autobot. The medical proof remains, even if I had a hard time believing it myself.” Smokescreen almost snorted. That he could almost believe. The Warlord wasn’t over, though. “And I see now that my first impulse to deal with the situation was the correct one. Knock Out! Prepare for surgery!” he ordered.

“As you wish, my Lord. But what shall I concentrate on, exactly? The Key inside our friend here, perhaps?”

Smokescreen blinked. “The Key? What…?”

The Warlord waved the question off with a gesture and a growl. “Never mind that relic! We’ll get around taking it out later! Start by removing his legs from the knee down!”

This time, Smokescreen wasn’t laughing anymore. His optics widened in fright. “Hey! Wait a klik here!”

Megatron looked at him, optics still shining, expression grim. “I think, Smokescreen--” the way he pronounced his designation sent a shiver through the Autobot’s frame “-- that you’ll find out ‘kicking our afts’ will be most difficult without the ability to stand, and so will be any pesky attempt at running away. Now I have you, I’m certainly not letting you run back to Optimus,” he growled. “Either I’m removing your lower legs, or I’m breaking off your back strut. One way or another, I’m not letting you free run in the ship, and I’m not letting anything to luck.” Smokescreen swallowed as he looked at the Warlord’s hands, so large, so powerful, and who had killed thousands. He had no doubt they could indeed break his back with ease. 

“You… You can’t do that! You can’t!” Smokescreen howled as he started to trash, trying to free himself. He wasn't going to let them amputate him! He wasn’t!

“On the contrary, Smokescreen; I can, and I will,” the Decepticon leader said flatly. A clawed hand cupped the younger mech’s cheek briefly, red optics looking into blue ones as if searching for something before the hand withdrew. The contact had been brief, but almost warm, and it scared Smokescreen almost as much as the Warlord’s earlier fury. “Trust me, Youngling, limb removal is far less painful than the other option, especially when it’s properly done by a medic.” Was he trying to be reassuring? Because if so, he was totally failing at it, Smokescreen thought with growing hysteria!

Megatron looked at him for a moment more until a noise made him turn. He moved out of the way, just in time for Smokescreen to take sight of Knock Out taking out his rotary saw.

“No! No! Nooooo!” he screamed in panic, his trashing becoming more frantic.

“Ah, ah, none of that, little Prince,” Knock Out drawled. “I like my patients to be calm when I operate. My Lord, if you’d like to calm your Creation?”

“Indeed,” Megatron said flatly.

The next thing Smokescreen knew, a fist was flying at his helm.

And then everything became black.


	3. Chapter 3

Smokescreen woke up screaming.

If upon his capture, his processor had blanked out and he had woke up disoriented, this time he remembered perfectly well what was about to befall him. He could still hear the noise of Knock Out’s rotary saw starting, he could still see Megatron has he loomed over him, and he remembered the fist hitting the side of his helm.

So he screamed, high pitched and Spark fluttering in frenzy, sitting on the berth he… wasn’t strapped to anymore? He blinked uneasily, feeling vaguely sick. The berth he had been manacled to had barely been more than a slab, hard and unforgiving. The one he was lying on currently was covered with a thick layer of mesh padding and… there was a cover draped over him, pooling around his waist now he was awake and sitting. There also was a pillow on which his head had been resting.

He wasn’t in the medbay anymore, that much he could guess. There was no monitors beeping, no machinery, no noises of any sort. It was so eerily quiet it send a shudder down his spinal strut. Wherever he was, he had the feeling he wouldn’t like it. It had to be a cell, but it was the first time he saw a cell with a… a nice berth! Even Autobots only furnished their with slabs due to lack of resources, and Smokescreen held no illusion he was important enough to have the right to, shall he say, ‘nicer accommodations’.

Slag, how long had he stayed unconscious? And had they really…?

Smokescreen swallowed. Slowly, he started to pat and look at himself. His fingers and optics first found the incisions, already welded back shut, over the place his T-Cog had occupied. He touched them with a wince. They didn’t hurt, per say, but their presence indicated just how vulnerable he now was. Without T-Cog, no transformation and no weapons -- unless he could find a stray blaster. The no transformation, he could work with for the moment, but the no weapons would hinder any attempt at escaping.

His hands brushed lower and he winced again, this time in actual pain. His abdomen had been split in two, neatly. The armor must have been gently and carefully pushed apart in order to dig into his gears, and then everything had been closed back and welded carefully. The weld didn’t look that old but they were still sensitive to the touch, so it mustn’t have been more than a couple of megacycles since they had been finished. Why had the Decepticons opened him up like…? Oh. They had said something about an Omega Key, hadn’t they?

Smokescreen had a hard time believing there could have been one hidden in his chassis, despite the fleeting glance he had taken at Knock Out’s scan, but apparently, they had been right. His mind reeled at the implications. How had it ended in him? And when? Why?! Primus, if he saw Alpha Trion again, he was going to have a very long, very overdue explanation with the old mech!

His rising humor and anger fell apart, though, as he lowered his gaze further and he took sight of the lumps under the cover. The lumps where his legs were supposed to be. They were so… so small.

Oh Primus. Oh Primus! OhPrimusohPrimusohPrimus!

With trembling fingers, Smokescreen reached out for the cover. He shuttered his optics, feeling cowardly for doing so, as he yanked on the soft fabric. He inhaled and exhaled loudly through his vents for several breems before gathering enough courage to dare to peek. When he did, though, a broken mewling escaped him.

His legs were gone. From the knee down, there was nothing. All that remained of his lower limbs were his thighs, which looked as pristine and untouched as before. Hands still shaking -- and he noticed dimly the trembling had increased -- he reached for the stumps, groping, patting and probing them with his digits. He had expected pain, sharp edges, broken wires, perhaps energon or oil or coolant starting to leak from mangled lines, but there was nothing.

The metal was smooth, and there was no pain at all, to his surprise. It was as if Knock Out hadn’t hacked through his legs, but instead had carefully unscrewed the limbs before gently incising, cutting through, rerooting and cauterizing the energon lines so there would be no leak, then had welded the stumps shut with new, pliable metal plates to avoid leaving them exposed.

Smokescreen continued to touch the stumps more frantically, making small sounds of distress and constantly rebooting his optics, as if what he saw was just an illusion, a nightmare and he was going to wake up any klik now. His cries of distress became louder and louder, even as his optics filled with coolant fluid and a few drops started to roll down his cheeks.

“Nonononononono…” he repeated like a mantra. He knew he was starting to sound and look hysterical, but he didn’t care; he had been amputated, for Primus’ sake!

Sure, in their kind, it didn’t meant much; a limb could easily be replaced for Cybertronians, upgraded with new weapons, with specific, integrated features such as scanners or EMP generators, with claws or blunt digits, with rockets, with skates, with blades,... The only things you needed were a competent medic(s) and enough resources, tools and specs to build the replacement limb.

Smokescreen had never lost a digit, let alone a leg before, so he was allowed some freaking out, right? Especially since he was prisoner! He was on the verge of wailing when he heard a sound.

It was almost like a… snort?

“Humph. You should calm down, Youngling.”

Smokescreen froze and scrambled to turn and look into the darkness around him. He hadn’t noticed before, lost to his rising panic, but there was a form half-hidden in a corner, two red optics peered at him from the darkness. The Autobot swallowed. The room lighted up slightly, and a large mech took a few steps toward him. Smokescreen swallowed.

“Megatron.”

“You should refer to me as ‘Sire’,” the Warlord just commented. Primus, how long had he been there? Had he stayed silent and half-hidden for megacycles until Smokescreen woke up, just watching him? No, that was ridiculous… was it? Smokescreen scrambled back awkwardly, considering his missing limbs, as the former gladiator came closer, still looking at him.

Then what he had said finally registered in the young Autobot’s processor, and he scowled, panic making way for sudden rage. “Like the Pit I will!” he snapped, baring his dental plates -- which was somehow ridiculous, given how unimpressive and flat his teeth were, not like Megatron, and oh did they look sharp!

The Warlord smiled thinly, looking amused. “Typical Youngling bravado. Why aren’t I surprised?” He put a knee on the berth, looming over Smokescreen, putting a hand on each side of the younger mech’s frame. Smokescreen’s Spark started to beat faster, rage dropping and fear rising again. Too close! Too close! He wanted nothing more than to flee, but the only thing he would manage at this point would be to fall on the floor and try to crawl toward the nearest door -- which was far behind the Warlord. He could make out the outline in the semi-darkness.

Primus, what did the mech want with him? The berth, the way he was looming… that looked like a scene from those bad ‘romance’ stories some of his fellow Cadets kept hiding under their berth and that Smokescreen had borrowed once or twice to fill time.

Did the Warlord intend to… to forcefully interface with him?

His optics widened in fear and Smokescreen whimpered before ducking his helm and shuttering his optics. If… if something bad had to happen, he didn’t want to witness it!

But Megatron didn’t move, and didn’t reach for him. At most, the Warlord just heaved loudly. “You really look like Orion. Your Carrier,” Megatron added lightly as if to clarify who he was talking about. Smokescreen stilled. That name again. Orion… that sounded familiar somehow. Where had he heard it -- aside of earlier in the Decepticon medbay? Perhaps… Alpha Trion had talked so much about so many things and so many people. Was it him who had dropped this name first? He couldn’t remember.

Megatron hadn’t finished speaking. “It’s not so obvious at first glance, of course, but when one compare the two of you, then it becomes quite clear you’re related. You have the same optics, yours colors resemble his,... Though Orion never had a Praxian build.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Uh, no offense or whatever, but I look like a Praxian because I’m a Praxian, born and raised, so if I have a Sire and a Carrier as opposed to rolling out of a protoform factory, then they’d have to be Praxian themselves,” Smokescreen snipped, lighting his optics to glare at the Warlord. “Remember Praxus? The city your aerial troops bombed and razed almost to the ground?”

The Warlord… smirked. “Oh, I don’t doubt you must have spent time in Praxus, Youngling, but born there? That, I certainly think not. Given how Orion and I ended our relationship, I can easily deduce your age, and I’ve studied Orion’s moves across Cybertron extensively in the beginning of the war. He never went to Praxus -- not until the city was smoking ruins in the landscape.” He moved suddenly and grabbed Smokescreen’s chin. With a yelp, the younger mech used both hands to grab the Warlord’s forearm and try to make him let go, but the former had far more raw force than he did, and he couldn’t make him bulge. Scared blue optics looked into intense red ones for several kliks before Megatron let go. Smokescreen massaged his jaw almost frantically.

The Warlord hummed. “How you ended there is a mystery, Youngling. One I intend to solve eventually. In the meanwhile, though, I’ve more than enough projects to busy myself. I have relics to study and to get back, after all.”

Smokescreen swallowed. He had almost forgotten about the Omega Keys! Thankfully, they still had one safe at the base… Oh. He briefly started to pray. So far, it was easy to see Megatron was distracted. So long he remained so, then he might not get the idea to pry the base’s localisation from Smokescreen’s mind, or torture him to get intel. Even if he did… Smokescreen would have to hold out, like a true Autobot. He wouldn’t willingly betray his comrades, and especially not his Prime!

“I’m going to lay down some simple rules, little mech,” Megatron rumbled. Oh, great; rules. But at least he wasn’t asking him questions. “I suggest you listen and do not interrupt me, unless you want me to treat you like all harried Creators treat their errant Creations.” Was that supposed to mean exactly? “Ah, what did I say?” he added, a clawed finger put over Smokescreen’s lips as the young Autobot tried to open his mouth.

“Firstly, this room is yours,” he rumbled as he made a gesture in the barely lit darkness -- Smokescreen couldn’t see much, just the outline of what seemed to be a chair or perhaps a sofa in a corner. “You won’t leave this place in the immediate future, and you certainly won’t leave it without an escort if allowed out. As such, I suggest you limit your… ‘childish tantrums’ and do not give up yourself in random acts of destruction on the furnitures. I don’t intend to have them replaced should you damage them. Any such misdemeanor will be treated severely, is that clear?”

Smokescreen swallowed and nodded, barely. It seemed sufficient for Megatron.

“Secondly, I’ll assign a few Vehicons to your care. They’ll help you move around and will be in charge of giving you your daily fuel rations as well as clean up the place -- as we both know you won’t be in any state to do so.” His glances slide over the stumps of Smokescreen’s legs without comment. “I suggest you refrain yourself from attacking them, trying to maim or kill them, or annoy them in any way or shape. Should you do so anyway, you won’t get any new ones. Nod if you understand.”

Again, Smokescreen made a small gesture of acknowledgement.

“Thirdly, you will always address me with proper respect. Ideally, you should refer to me as ‘Sire’--” Smokescreen snarled; no way he’d call the grey mech that! “-- though I’ll settle for ‘Lord Megatron’ or ‘Sir’. None of your childish nicknames, I wouldn’t like that. And Creation of mine or not, don’t expect me to spare you from pain should you try and get on my CPU,” he added with narrowed optics. “Do we have a deal, Smokescreen?”

“... You’re not my Sire,” the young mech whispered. “I don’t have a Sire. And if I have one, then he’s not a crazy genocidal murderer!”

Megatron’s lips quirked, as if he was only amused by Smokescreen’s cheekiness instead of annoyed. Apparently, calling him a murderer wasn’t considered a big taunt. “Oh, really? Is that so? I think you’ll find out soon enough how wrong you are, my son.” He stressed out the last word horribly, and Smokescreen grimaced. “But let’s have this conversation later, shall we? Knock Out informed me you’d need rest after the series of operations you went through. I’d suggest you go back to recharge. Someone will come and bring you fuel in three megacycles -- and I expect not to get a comm. telling me you threw it on the floor or at the hapless servant’s head.”

He rose from the edge of the berth smoothly before grabbing one of Smokescreen’s arms and yanking him back to lie flatly on the mattress. Smokescreen yelped, trying to sit again until a cover was brought up to his neck. Optics wide, he just stared as Megatron… tucked him in? That was… very weird. And scary.

The Warlord grunted. “Recharge,” he simply ordered before turning and disappearing in the darkness -- the soft, lingering light had disappeared once again. There was a flash of light -- a door opening and closing on a corridor, he guessed -- and the sound of steps getting further away, until there only was silence. Smokescreen stared at the general direction the Warlord had disappeared into, slowly shaking his head.

Recharging after that? As if!


	4. Chapter 4

“I seem to remember telling you, little mech, to not throw your fuel at your intendants’ heads, didn’t I?”

Smokescreen lowered his gaze and tightened his fists, avoiding looking at Megatron. The mech wasn’t accusing him or whatever. Sitting in a chair, holding a flute of a high grade in one hand and making the liquid twirl slowly, in an almost bored manner -- slag, the glass looked ridiculously small in his clawed hand! -- he was speaking in a smooth way, not even looking directly at Smokescreen. His optics were focused on the purplish liquid in his drink, his chin in one hand as his elbow rested on the arm of his chair while one of the two Vehicons who had served them ‘dinner’ cleared the table.

The whole thing had been so weird. Actually, the whole last four solar cycles had been weird! Yes, four, according to his chronometer; however, he had spend so many time drifting in and out of recharge he sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been longer. Utter boredom could do that to a mech, or so Alpha Trion had claimed once. Smokescreen hadn’t believed him -- at least, until he found himself stuck in berth with nothing to occupy himself. Not that there hadn’t been ‘entertainment’ proposed to him; in a very unexpected and almost shocking way, Megatron and the Vehicons servants had seen fit to furnish his ‘room’ with datapads to read and other stuff. Only, to mark his refusal to partake in Megatron’s crazy schemes and insane claims he was Smokescreen’s Sire, the Autobot had stubbornly refused to do or ask for anything.

And yes, he had thrown his first three cubes of energon at the head of the Vehicons who had handed them. Childish and stupid, he had to admit, but on the moment, it had felt good.

That’s it, until he started to feel the first pangs of hunger as his fuel levels dropped steadily. He was only offered one cube at ‘fueling time’ as per Megatron’s orders -- or so Nestor had said respectfully -- and if he wasted it, he was not to receive any other until his next ‘meal’. After one day and half with an empty fuel tank, especially since he had apparently lost quite a bit during the various surgeries he had been submitted to, Smokescreen had had to concede defeat. Starving himself wouldn’t help him escape his place, he had rationalized.

Sure, he knew the chances the Autobots managed to breach the Nemesis to rescue him were thin, due to a number of factors, but if it happened, he needed to be at the peak of his strength. He couldn’t run, but he needed to be able to shoot, or yell warnings, or whatever.

Besides, watching the stoic Vehicons just clean themselves and the floor hadn’t been nearly as fun as he had expected it to be.

They were a strange pair, Smokescreen had to admit. Nearly silent (but that wasn’t unusual with Vehicons as far as he knew) and almost identical, asides perhaps of one having slightly brighter colors than the other, they moved around and said their rare sentences with a look of… of dignity that had taken the captive Autobot by surprise. Their designations, as they had revealed to him in clipped introductions, were N3ST-0R and J33-V3S, or as Smokescreen prefered to call them, Nestor and Jeeves.

Frankly, Smokescreen found them slightly creepy. The upper-class accents and glyphs they sometimes used, he could deal with. The way they usually stood in a corner, unseen and unheard until the Praxian looked their way, like deactivated drones… Brr. And they were so boring! Smokescreen had tried to insult, to taunt them, he had thrown his pillows at them, and they hadn’t reacted. Well, Nestor had raised an optic ridge, amiably said something along the lines of ‘if you say so, young Prince’ and then handed him back the pillows -- not without swelling up first, though.

Jeeves had offered to carry him over to install him in a sofa, should he wish to, but Smokescreen had quickly snapped negatively at the offer. No way he was letting a Decepticon carry him over! The Autobot had said pretty much the same thing about Jeeves’ offer to carry him to the small, private washracks of his ‘room’ and help him clean himself, albeit with a lot more swear words than for the first offer. Sure, his joints felt stiff, and dust was starting to get on his frame, but he wasn’t going to let them treat him like… like a doll or something!

So… yeah. Aside of curling on the berth, recharge and trying to ignore his two guards/servants/whatever they were, the last few solar cycles had been filled with nothing.

That’s it, until both Vehicons had installed a long folding table, draped it over with a tablecloth, dragged in two comfortable chairs and let him known his ‘Sire’ would be coming to dine with him for the evening cycle.

He had thought it was a joke.

Obviously, Smokescreen thought sourly as he glared at the barely touched plate before him, it hadn’t been. He had been lifted out of the berth and carried over with the use of a hoverchair before being installed at the table. Megatron had truly come in a few moments later, looking calm and composed, though his smirk betrayed his glee as he sat in the opposite chair and mentioned how much he had looked forward speaking with Smokescreen further.

To which the young Autobot had snapped he didn’t intend to talk with the former gladiator -- only to get chuckled at, and with red, hot cheeks, Smokescreen had realized that even his denials were food for conversation, as brief and tense as it was. And just like that, Megatron had waved for Nestor and Jeeves to start serving them their meal.

When they had meant dinner, the Vehicons hadn’t meant ‘just sit in front of each other and share a cube while talking’, no. They truly meant a real dinner like, several courses served hot or cold and that he had to eat with cutlery, like a spoon or a fork or… or chopsticks!

Smokescreen had never been to a dinner before. He had heard of it, generally brought up when one mentioned the Nobles’ Spires, where they held up parties and fancy receptions, and he had seen pictures and read texts -- including a badly damaged cooking book -- but he had never experienced it. The closest he came from was during his time working with Alpha Trion. One day, out of the blue, the old mech had, Primus only knew how, presented Smokescreen once with a bowl full of a kind of energon jelly which had to be eaten with a spoon. It had been so sweet, so rich in savor… and so quickly eaten he had been disappointed when his spoon had hit the empty bottom.

This kind of dish, Alpha Trion had explained to him as he watched him gorge himself with an amused, paternalist expression, used to be fairly common before the war. But as the conflict intensified and the energon production dropped, they had become rarer and rarer, until nobody could even make energon goodies anymore. A pity; Smokescreen remembered the goodies handed to him and another couple of Sparklings by a random compassionate soldier when they had reached an Autobot enclave which had taken them in. So good, sticky between his dental plates, sour, sweet or acidic, they had left him with a warm memories.

Energon jelly had been a simple dessert, but not one often eaten by the low classes citizens such as the miners, like Megatron was reputed to come from. As such, as some nobles had snidely said, it was doubtful the so-called ‘Lord’ Megatron even knew how to use silverware;

The thought and sight of Megatron, the Terror of Kaon, holding a little spoon between his fingers to better eat had Smokescreen giggling at some point, but the Warlord hadn’t seemed bothered. Instead, he had just concentrated on eating.

Smokescreen had known the Decepticons were better off when it came to fuel, what’s with all the mines they had uncovered on Earth and which were still exploited by civilian minors, but he hadn’t thought they had extracted so much as to make the fancy dishes he had been presented with. It made him feel a pang as he thought of the difficulties the Autobots had to get simple fuel. It was so unfair…

“Well, Youngling? Won’t you answer?” Megatron asked lightly, never stopping from twirling his high grade, stopping briefly to take a sip.

Smokescreen looked up and glared -- and fought down the impulsion to stick out his glossa -- before deliberately stabbing a dumpling with his fork and munching on it. Normally, he should have eaten them with chopsticks, but after a dozen failed attempts at taking one between the two thin metal sticks, Megatron had waved for Nestor to hand him a fork; Smokescreen had felt utterly humiliated, which might have been another reason he didn’t like the dumplings. He almost grimaced at the taste -- they were all filled with a mix of mercury and sulfur, which Smokescreen hated, and he fought down the impulse to spit it out. But talking with one’s mouth full wasn’t polite, after all, so it dispensed him from having to speak with the Warlord. Which, he had to admit, was hard.

Partly because he was bored, and mostly because Megatron was good at getting answers out of him even when Smokescreen didn’t want to tell him anything, the young Autobot kept falling into short, tense conversation with the Warlord. Well, it was tense on Smokescreen’s part; Megatron, he, seemed unperturbed. Slagger.

He swallowed slowly, with reluctance, and looked morosely at the rest of the thick, square-shaped pieces of dough. Ugh. How could anyone like that? Asides of Megatron, who had eaten them all already, just like he had slowly eaten his soup previously. The thick, almost sludgy melange had been far more palatable for Smokescreen -- in fact, he had truly enjoyed the broth -- but the young mech had barely taken a few spoonfuls, too angry at his captor and far too on edge to take more.

“Would you like a drink, little mech?”

Smokescreen bit his lips, glancing up at the Warlord. He was watching him again, faint amusement perfectly clear in his red optics. “... Yes, please,” Smokescreen finally grunted as Nestor came closer and filled his flute with… “Oil?” he exclaimed, scandalized. “What about the high grade?” Megatron had taken several flutes already, why wasn’t Smokescreen served the same thing?!

A throaty laugh filled the air. “I know how to count, Youngling. You may be old enough to pick a weapon and shoot, but you’re certainly a few vorns shy to take high grade. Oil it is for you until then -- midgrade, perhaps, if you’re nice,” he added with a smirk.

Smokescreen glared at him with indignation, his doorwings quivering. “I already had high grade before!” he said petulantly. The stuff had been bad quality, it had been filled with impurity and it had positively reek, leaving him with a burned intake and an upset tank, but it had still been high grade. If he could handle that mix, he could handle the real stuff!

“I don’t doubt you did. But you won’t do so again, not under my watch,” was the Warlord only answer as he clapped and Nestor and Jeeves picked out the plates and put them on a rolling table. Immediately after, they were putting another full plate before them.

Smokescreen stared dubiously at the half-circle of neatly sliced round crystal. The other half of the circle was made by a trail of darkly colored sauce to spice them. It was simple but almost artistic in its composition.

“Ah, raw green crystal with a molten iron and copper sauce? My compliments, it looks perfect,” Megatron waved to Jeeves with a look of approval. The Vehicon bowed.

“It was my pleasure to prepare them, my Lord. I hope they’ll be to your tastes, and to the young Prince’s.”

Smokescreen bristled. “How many times must I repeat I don’t want to be called like that?” he grunted unhappily as he took another fork to pick the slices of crystal, taking note of which one Megatron had selected. For a brute and a barbarian, he seemed to be surprisingly at ease with dishware, far more anyway than the inexperienced Smokescreen.

“What you want and what you will receive are very different matters, my son,” Megatron commented simply after crunching a crystal slice between his sharp dentas.

“And stop calling me your son!” Smokescreen snapped in frustration. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for his legs right now, so he could jump to his feet and leap at the Warlord to… to… Well. He probably wouldn’t win a fight, but if he could at least punch Megatron in the face, he’d be happy.

“Why? Are you so afraid of the truth, little mech?”

Smokescreen growled. “I’m not afraid! You… you’re just delusional!” He stabbed at a crystal slice in revenge, wincing at the fork’s ripped on the metal, scritching, before he munched on it almost viciously. Eh. The stuff wasn’t bad, he decided after a moment. Even without the spicy sauce, it actually was nice. Cool, refreshing and light, with an almost watery undertone. He took another and another, almost gobbling them down under Megatron’s amused gaze. Though there seemed to be something else too in his optics…

“We shall see who’s the delusional one later, shall we not?” The tone was idle, but there was still a hint of steel behind that made Smokescreen pause before he started ranting about Megatron’s general craziness. He wondered if perhaps he shouldn’t push the matter further, because getting Megatron to crack while he was helpless and in close-quarters with the Warlord would be bad. Worse than bad, even; lethal.

Deciding against for the moment, he concentrated on finishing his plate -- funny thought: where had the Decepticons found dishware? -- in little time. The fact it was good made it far easier. He let his fork fall back in the plate with a ‘clang’ and watched as Megatron finished his own, feeling a pinch of annoyance at seeing the Warlord was also using a knife to slice the crystals in smaller bits. Smokescreen hadn’t been presented one. Delusional or not, Megatron wasn’t about to hand him a potential weapon.

“Excellent,” the Warlord finally said as he leaned back in his chair. “I trust you prepared a dessert just as good as the rest of the meal?”

“Of course my Lord, and I’ve taken the liberty to set aside a special, suitable high grade bottle to serve with it. If you please?” Megatron waved and the plates were exchanged again.

Smokescreen blinked at the confection before him. In a way, it resembled the energon jelly Alpha Trion had served him -- in a very loose way. It was obviously a jelly, that much was apparent, only it had been thickened or perhaps refrigerated in order to be able to keep a shape once versed out of a mold. The molded jelly was covered and bathing in a thick, oily sauce, while gem-shaped little energon goodies had been disposed all around. A round one had even be put on the top of the confection, and Smokescreen found his mouth watering at the sight.

He was digging in the moment he had his dessert spoon in hand, humming in bliss as he took the first mouthful, then the second and the third in quick succession, followed by a few more spoonful taken at a slower rate, enjoying the way the jelly melted in his mouth. He only started to realize what he must have looked like when he heard Megatron chuckle and Jeeves hum.

“I see the young Prince enjoyed the energon pudding. Should I prepare another one for your next dinner, my Lord?”

“You may,” Megatron said dismissively before leaning forward, chin in his hands and elbows on the table, smirking. Smokescreen swallowed his last spoonful uneasily. “You seem to indeed have a sweet tooth, little mech. I can’t say I’m surprised; Orion was much the same. You definitely inherited your Carrier’s tastes.”

Smokescreen balked. “Again with your stories? I told you, I’m not your Creation, and I don’t know a ‘Orion’ -- and especially not one who could be my Carrier!” He clung to the idea stubbornly. Admitting his Carrier might have been called Orion -- which Smokescreen couldn’t prove or dismiss, sadly, because as far as he knew, he had always lived in a Youth Sector of Praxus until it was destroyed -- meant he was playing along with Megatron’s fantasy… or acknowledging it might not be a fantasy, after all.

He could still see in his mind the two superposed Sparks wavelengths. As much as he wanted to deny it and just say Knock Out and Megatron wanted to mess with his head… he was afraid. Afraid there might be even a grain of truth floating among the obvious lies Megatron was sprouting.

It was ridiculous, of course. After all, what mech or femme would be crazy enough to lay down in berth with Megatron? And crazy enough to let himself get Sparked up? That was just too mind boggling to be possible. And still… and still… A small, very small doubt had started to take root into Smokescreen’s processor.

He tried to shake it out. “Besides,” he added in a more reasonable, calmer voice, “plenty of mechs have a ‘sweet tooth’. The fact I might have one like this ‘Orion’ character doesn’t mean anything.” Yeah. It didn’t.

Megatron hummed. “I could concede the point, I suppose. However, I find very interesting the way you reacted to each dish.” He waved at the two Vehicons removing the flutes, plates and candlesticks off the table. He seemed very amused by something, and Smokescreen tensed. What…? “You see, little mech, I had given specific orders. The meal we were served was, the setting asides, a perfect recreation of Orion and I first outing together.”

Smokescreen blinked as Megatron leaned back in his seat, looking pensive. “Oh yes, a perfect recreation. It was my first time into a restaurant of any sort. Miner salary or gladiator fights never brought in much. It was Orion who paid for the course. He wanted to have, ah, ‘a nice evening’.” He snorted before sobering up. “I felt humiliated,” he mumbled in an almost inaudible way. “I would have paid for my part, for everything, but the Data Caste had higher earnings…”

“The Data Caste?” Smokescreen blinked. “Did he know Alpha Trion?” Unease filtered through his processor, but he clamped down on the feeling immediately. That… Alpha Trion, the Archives, ‘Orion’, Smokescreen himself… Yeah. He shouldn’t read too deep into the situation. It was all coincidences. He had been assigned at random; the old mech hadn’t requested him specifically, and especially not because he might had thought he was that Orion mech’s Creation as well.

Megatron looked at him weirdly before chuckling. It wasn’t an amused or a happy chuckle. “Knew him? Oh yes, he knew him. He knew him very well. Ah, but it’s not the subject here, is it?

He continued. “I had trouble with the cutlery and found myself overwhelmed by the variety of the menu -- and the taste. I never was overly fond of mercury and sulfur dumplings either, but Orion thoroughly enjoyed them. You might have inherited something of me, finally,” he added with a smirk, as if he was sharing a big secret. Smokescreen looked at him as if he was crazy -- and he was pretty sure Megatron really was.

He swallowed. “I… I don’t see what it proves,” the young Autobot said, trying not to stammer.

“Probably not much,” Megatron nodded in agreement. His optics lighted with mischief. “Do you know? Orion and I became intimate for the first time right after that meal.”

… Ewww! Smokescreen gagged. Too much information! Oh Primus, it was sickening! His fuel tank felt unsettled. “I think I’m going to be sick,” he bemoaned only for Megatron to laugh loudly.

“Typical Youngling reaction when they realize what their Creators have been up to in order to make them. Though I suppose eating your dessert too fast isn’t helping.”

“It’s your fault anyway,” Smokescreen groaned. “I told you, I’m not your Creation! I’m a Praxian foundling!”

Megatron snorted, his optics darkening as he became serious once more. For a klik, Smokescreen tensed, fearing the Warlord had decided to end his little game and finally kill him or do something else with him. But the grey mech just intertwined his fingers and looked at his captive in a very business-like fashion. “Very well. Let’s lay our cards on table, shall we? I pretend you’re my Creation; you’re adamant you’re not, despite the fact Knock Out showed you medical proof. I believe this proof, even if you don’t. As it is…”

“As it is, you hacked out my T-Cog and cut off my legs,” Smokescreen said scattingly, crossing his arms and trying not to wiggle uneasily at the reminder. “Why should I believe anything you say? And what sort of Creator does that to his own Creation?”

“Oh? So you’re admitting you’re my son, then?” Megatron asked lightly.

Smokescreen sputtered. “I’m doing no such thing! I…” Megatron held out a hand.

“Yes, I know; Praxian foundling, orphan, not my Creation or Orion’s. So you have said. But can you back it up, little mech? Tell me, do you have any proof I’m wrong and that you aren’t mine and Orion’s? What proof do you have you’re truly Praxian? Do you have records? Did you ever seen any?”

The Autobot glared, doorwings flapping briefly in anger. “How can you even ask? When you razed Praxus to the ground?!”

“Stick to the fact, little mech,” Megatron barked back. “Records proving you’re Praxian; yes or no?”

Smokescreen gritted his dental plates. “No,” he choked out. “If I did, I was too young to be able to properly decipher them. They were all in thick legislative glyphs, and when the Center was evacuated, I was barely on my second language download; I couldn’t have made sense of them had I read them.”

“‘Thick legislative glyphs’, oh? And how would you know that, Youngling?”

Smokescreen looked away. “I may have explored the caretakers and the Center’s Director’s office once or twice,” he vaguely said.

‘Explored’ was an understatement; Smokescreen had been what one caretaker referred as a ‘slippery little thing’, who kept escaping the playpen and later the game or classroom to run in the corridors and play ‘hide and seek’ with the harried personnel. He had the vaguest memories of ending hiding in a couple of offices, pating the keyboards as he watched screens and getting screeched at by a Security Director whose reports he had just accidentally erased before it could be saved and send to the Archives. He had a much neater memory of the spanking which had followed at the hand of said Security Director. And… there may have been a shouting match between the Security mech and the one caretaker Smokescreen remembered always looking after him.

Funny; as far as his earliest memories went, she had always been there, shadowing his every step, holding his hand as he started walking after his gyros had stabilized, rocking him to recharge when he was upset, handing him his snacks when he was hungry. She kept repeating she wasn’t his Carrier, but he had loved her all the same.

The irony? He didn’t remember her name, as horrible as it was. The trauma of the attack on Praxus and a head injury -- benign, but ill-placed -- had corrupted part of his early memory banks. What was her name? Ra-something, he thought. But if her name escaped him, he did remember her face, and the way she had laid on the ground, broken and optics dims after she pushed him in the arms of a junior, newer personnel member with orders to keep him safe.

She had laid down her life for him. And he hated Megatron and the Decepticons for taking her away.

Megatron, the fragger, was smirking. “And I’m sure it was all perfectly legal, approved ‘exploration’, uh? But never mind, Youngling. So, you can’t show me a record…”

Smokescreen hit the table with his fists. “Because all of them were destroyed when Praxus fell!”

Megatron raised an optic ridge. “Actually, not all records. Our inside troops and sleeper agents downloaded a good portion of the city’s datas before the first wave hit the industrial district,” the Warlord said calmly, and Smokescreen paused, looking at him in disbelief. Megatron snorted. “Don’t act too shocked, Youngling. Just because a city has declared itself neutral in a conflict doesn’t mean there wasn’t any sympathizers from one side of the other inside its walls.”

“Slaggers,” Smokescreen growled, fists tightening until his articulations almost hurt. “Just because they hadn’t all taken your side, you killed them all? Killed us all? We were neutral!”

“Obviously not all, since you’re here.” Smokescreen almost choked at the callous answer. “And this is war, little mech. Neutrality is for cowards who prefer to hide their head up their exhaust pipe. I’m a very simple mech; either you’re with me, or against me. I admit no middle ground.”

“You’re disgusting,” Smokescreen said, gritting his dental plates.

Megatron’s optics flashed dangerously. “I suggest you watch your language and your tone, my son, or I’ll have to teach you a lesson about due respect,” he warned, and it was clear from his voice alone it was no idle threat. Smokescreen almost jerked back in fear, his discomfort evident as Megatron nodded to himself after a long, tense, silent while. “But let’s get back on track, shall we? As it is, my agents gathered many files before the actual attack started. The short time window they had didn’t allow them to grab everything of value, and a lot of the files ended up being useless or irrelevant, but we have kept them archived, easily accessible from the Nemesis’ database.

Smokescreen stared at the Warlord uneasily. “So? What does it have to do with me?”

Megatron smiled thinly. “Oh, a lot of things. You see, little mech, Soundwave finished to sort out and verify each data we had concerning the Youth Centers of Praxus. And do you know what he found?” He revealed his sharp dentas as he spoke. “According to Soundwave, there was no Praxian Sparkling bearing the name of _‘Smokescreen’_ registered at any of the Centers. Not. A. Single. One,” he added for emphasis.

Smokescreen’s jaw dropped. He tried to make it work unsuccessfully for a few breems before scowling. “So what? I already knew it might not be my original designation!” His doorwings flared as he took a deep intake, his optics shuttering. “I was young and shocked, my files got corrupted, and the caretakers who had been ordered to evacuate first with as many Sparklings as they could were the newest staff members. They didn’t know everyone yet. I ended up getting renamed by one of them while on the road. It’s not like they could keep calling me ‘You’ and ‘Little one’ forever.” He lighted his optics and glared at Megatron, who looked thoughtful.

“Hmm. I see.” He tilted his head to the side. “It does explain the name, though it doesn’t explain why you identify yourself as Praxian when no files exist to prove you are.”

Smokescreen snorted. “Hello? You said yourself your mechs missed records; mine might very well had been in the lot! Besides, see here?” He fluttered his doorwings. “That’s the best Praxian badge of approval and identification you need! Besides, what else but little Praxians could there have been in PRAXUS’ Youth Centers?!”

Was the mech being obtuse on purpose?

He had expected the Warlord to get angry, to laugh or anything. But instead, Megatron just smiled. “You’re not very familiar with the way the Youth Centers functioned, are you? No, don’t answer, I think it’s obvious you don’t.” He snapped his fingers and one of the Vehicons served him a cube of energon; given the light color, it had to be lowgrade. Megatron took barely two or three sips before he put the cube down, looking neutral. “Youth Centers may have been created, furnished and maintained by each city-state, but unlike what you seem to think, they never limited their services to the sole population of the city where they were implanted. Some of the Centers were specifically designed to cater to the offsprings of certain Castes; Kaon’s Centers were aimed toward miners and factory workers offsprings, while Protihex had some designated for Sparklings issued from the medical classes. Iacon was full of cultural investigators and politicians, Praxus had one Center entirely dedicated to future Enforcers, and so on. Depending on what your home city-state offered, your resources and whatever ‘potential’ your offspring had, they could be sent half a planet away for their education. As such, Praxus’ Youth Centers were filled in part with little Iaconians and little Polyhexians.”

“S… so? I’m Praxian,” Smokescreen stated, doorwings proudly raised. However, they dropped in an almost defensive stance when Megatron started to smirk again.

“Outwardly? Yes, you have the design of a standard Praxus citizen. However, our good Doctor went digging through your coding, at my demand.” Smokescreen stared at him, stupefied the Warlord did something so… so intimate and invasive while he was unconscious. “And do you know what he found, little mech? Despite your shell looks, your coding are actually Iaconian in origins. 86% Iaconian, to be precise, with added 13% Kaonite and 1% Praxian.” His smirk dropped. “I imagine this 1% was brought in by your first altmode scans. It stands to reason you scanned one of the adults around you to better fit in, after all, and it does explain why you don’t physically resemble me or Orion more.”

Smokescreen hadn’t heard the last part. Thunderstruck, his CPU was replaying his supposed coding layout, the ‘86% Iaconian’ blaring loudly in his mind. “That’s… that’s not true,” he whispered. “I’m… I’m Praxian.” He was. He had grew up with Praxians, he had been taught and still sung Praxian tunes, he honored Praxian festivals, he had learned the specific glyphs in use in Praxus before anything else, he had learned doorwings language the moment he had his winglets, he…

When had his doorwings first appeared? he wondered, a sudden chill running down his spinal strut. He… always had had them… right? Sure, his early memories were fuzzy, but surely he had been them when he was crawling through that vent?

Except, the vent hadn't been that large, and tiny doorwings would have banged up against the walls...

“By adoption, certainly. On a pure coding standpoint, you’re not. Which lead more and more credibility to your filiation, don’t you think?”

“You… you’re not my Sire,” Smokescreen finally said after a moment of deep, unsettling silence. His vents were working hard to cool down his frame which was starting to overheat. If he had been able to, he would have flipped the table and run away screaming. Sadly, given his current lack of legs, he could only stay frozen in his seat and try not so start screaming hysterically that Megatron was lying. Because he had to be. Had to. “Let’s admit I’m Iaconian -- and I’m not convinced, you could have falsified the results of that coding reading, or even lie about having it done -- with a dash of Kaonite. So what? It just proves I might have Creators who came from those city-states. You may be from Kaon but…”

“I’m from Kaon, exactly,” Megatron said lightly. “And Orion was Iaconian, pure and bred. He was also part of the Data Caste, and so he was working under Alpha Trion’s direction. He was very close to the old fool, even,” he added with a look of distaste. “I imagine that if Orion Carried --”

“Ah! So you’re not even sure he ever had your Sparkling!” Smokescreen cracked, feeling relieved. “ _‘If Orion Carried’_? That means you’re not sure! That you’re just fantasizing! Admit it, that ‘Orion’ is just a figment of your imagination and…”

The growl that escaped Megatron was almost animalistic. It reminded Smokescreen of a Cyberwolf, like in the audio files he had sometimes listened to in the Archives. “Never. Ever. Say. Orion. Was. Imaginary!” If the growl had been animalistic, the shouts could have rendered him deaf. Smokescreen jerked bark, almost reversing his seat. Megatron’s optics were shining with fury and for a moment, the Autobot thought he was going to lose it and lunge at him.

Thankfully, the Warlord seemed to calm down and fell back in his chair, his sharp teeth still showing. “Never disrespect Orion before me, Smokescreen, or you won’t like the end results. He may have betrayed me, he may have left me and hidden your existence from me, but he’s still your Carrier. Even if he was a very poor one, and even if he apparently failed to acknowledge you as his Creation when you met him,” he snorted.

“I… met him? Wha…?” Smokescreen whispered unsure. Megatron didn’t let him time to verbalize his question. He tapped on the table with one sharp claw.

“Orion and I separated on bad terms, and that’s all you need to know for now.” Why did the Autobot think this was an understatement if he had ever heard one? “If indeed he was Carrying at the moment of our separation -- something he failed to warn me about -- then his mentor would have know. And you’re familiar with that old parasite, aren’t you? After you, you’re the first who have mentioned him tonight.” Smokescreen pinched his lips but didn’t deny; he had walked straight into that one, hadn’t he? “The old coot rarely took interest in anyone unless they have something special. Orion was one of his protégés. His absolute favorite, I dare to say. Any Creation of Orion, he would have welcomed them as if they were his, of that I’ve no doubt. You never thought it was weird he approached you?”

“Not really,” Smokescreen answered before he could stop himself. “I was assigned to the Archives’ security. Of course I’d met him if…”

Megatron’s smirk became predatory. “Exactly. The Archives’ security. How curious you ended there, ‘perfectly at random’, when all young Autobots Cadets are first sent out to distant outposts to fight or act as scouts in order to gain more experience -- I know how you Autobots work, Smokescreen. Transferred straight to the Archives? Ah! That was no coincidence. He recognized you for what you are or rather, who you are, and he took steps to ensure you’d be close by.”

… The worse part, Smokescreen thought dimly? When Megatron spoke, even if the Autobot still wanted to believe it was lies, whatever he said made an awful lot of sense. Was it how he had managed to fund the Decepticons? How he had managed to many mechs to turn against the established order and plunged their planet into war? Smokescreen had always had trouble thinking a single mech had been able to do just that but suddenly, it seemed perfectly possible. Possible, and very, very scary.

When had Megatron’s smirk become so frightening? It wasn’t a malicious smirk, it was just the smirk of someone who knew something you didn’t, and who lorded it over you. “You see, little mech? You can try and deny it as much as you wish, but deep inside, you know I’m right.”

Smokescreen didn’t answer. He wanted to, but the words were stuck in the back of his vocalizer, unable to force their way past his lips. He wanted to say: ‘I don’t believe you’, but he couldn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Megatron at this point; the Warlord was too persuasive, in an offhand way, for him to continue fruitlessly deny he was right, that he was indeed Smokescreen’s Sire. No. The truth of the matter was, he didn’t WANT to believe, because if he did, if he acknowledged it aloud…

Smokescreen had always wanted, deep down, to know where he came from. He had always wanted a family. As a Sparkling on the roads with the refugees, he often imagined what his Creators might have been like. He had wished them to be like the Creators in the cyberfairies tales: a strong, tall and wise Sire who provided good advices and encouraged him, and a nice, pretty Carrier who would shower him with hugs and kisses and tell him again and again how much he/she loved him. Growing up, he had dropped the daydreaming about the perfect parents, acknowledging they were most likely dead and melted down, and that there was no point in torturing himself with questions which would remain without answers.

Now, he was having those answers served to him, wherever he liked it or not. Megatron was standing barely two meters away, solid and real, all sharp edges and sharp dental plates, clawed hands able to crush a mech’s head between them, Megatron, with the energon of so many Autobots on his hands, Megatron, who had razed his city -- but was Praxus truly his city anymore? -- Megatron, who had destroyed Cybertron in his mad quest for power and dominance, Megatron, the Slag-maker Megatron the monster, Megatron who claimed to be his Sire.

And Smokescreen didn’t want to accept he was the Creation of a monster. If he did… wouldn’t that make him a monster himself?

He made a soft sound of distress as his processor tried to fruitlessly deal with the onslaught of questions, of denials and acceptations, of lies and truth he didn’t want to admit as such. Too much, it was too much. Megatron was… but Megatron couldn’t be. Because Smokescreen wanted to be hero like Optimus Prime, not a monster like Megatron.

“I’ve upset you.” The Warlord was watching him, but his frame had relaxed, his optics were less intense. The way he was looking at Smokescreen now was almost… kind, as weird as it was. Smokescreen swallowed, but couldn’t avoid letting a sob out. The Warlord sighed. “Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. I know, however, of a very good remedy for tense frames and mental anguish. Nestor, Jeeves?” he asked, turning toward the two Vehicons.

Smokescreen had completely forgotten they were here! They had heard everything, and they hadn’t made a noise. Frag, what were those mechs?!

“Yes, Sir?”

“Draw a bath for the young Prince,” Megatron ordered regally. Smokescreen hiccuped, his internal turmoil wanting a way out. A bath? That was Megatron’s miracle remedy? Granted, a bath might not be so bad; he felt filthy… Okay, he knew he was filthy. And given his current lack of standing -- Primus, the pun was horrible and it almost made him giggle -- it wasn’t as if he could actually use a normal washracks.

“As you desire, my Lord. Do you wish for us to help the Prince wash himself?”

“No. I’ll handle it myself.”

Smokescreen’s next hiccup was choked down as his optics widened. _What?!_


	5. Chapter 5

A nightmare. That had to be. He wasn’t currently being held in the arms of Megatron, Lord of the Decepticons, and transported from his chair to the door behind which the washracks hide in order to be given a bath. He wasn’t! But Jeeves and Nestor had just given them the a-okay, bowing low to let ‘Lord Megatron’ know that the ‘young Prince’s bath’ was ready, and now Smokescreen found himself in a dreaded position.

On the plus side, the sudden anger he felt had temporarily managed to fight back his earlier distress.

“Release me!” Smokescreen tried to hit his captor, but Megatron held one of his wrists securely and tightened his hold, making Smokescreen wince and hiss lowly in pain. The Warlord’s red optics loomed over him.

“Ah, ah, none of that, little mech. You reek and it’s high time you do something about the grime. Now, be nice or you might find yourself on the ground, and I doubt you’d enjoy the fall.” He snorted. “Really! Such a tantrum for such a little thing! I’d be tempted to say you’re younger than you appear -- unless you don’t like water?” His lips quirked in a smirk, and Smokescreen’s cheeks burned.

“I happen to enjoy water just fine,” he groused between clenched dental plates. “What I find abhorrent is the mere idea you might help me clean up!”

“Oh? And why is that?” Megatron asked, pausing a few steps away from the doors. Smokescreen couldn’t tell if he was genuinely curious or if he was humoring him. “I would have thought you’d be pleased someone was here to help you with your doorwings, little mech. Unless you know how to clean them alone? Especially without being able to stand up?” It wasn’t a taunt exactly, but it was clear the Warlord was amused. Smokescreen’s cheeks must have been seering by now, and his doorwings quivered briefly in tension.

Of course. Back protrusions were always problematic for mechs and femmes who had them -- unless they happened to have washracks with special features such as pressurized, controllable water jets and remote-controlled brushes to ensure they could get to the parts their arms couldn’t naturally reach for. As such accommodations had become a rarity, the simplest cheapest way to go around the problem was to resort to a ‘I wash your back, you wash mine’ agreement with your teammates/fellow Cadets/roommates/whatever.

There were tricks around it, Smokescreen knew, but he had never mastered the knack himself, and so the ‘wash buddy’ system had been his only way to make sure his doorwings and their joints stayed free of grim. Even here on Earth, since his arrival, he had resorted to it, usually with Bumblebee, who understood his troubles better than, say, Bulkhead.

His doorwings dropped slightly. Megatron, as sad as it was, was right. Still… “Why can’t it be one of the Vehicons?” he muttered, letting his body sag in the Warlord’s arms. The hold on his wrist became gentler.

“Oh, do not worry, they’ll help you out sooner or later. However, since I’m here, it’s only normal I spend time with my Creation, isn’t it?” A smirk that showed too much teeth flashed and Smokescreen shuttered his optics.

The words _‘I’m not’_ were dancing in his mind, but they felt empty, denuded of sense. Not quite a lie, but certainly not a truth anymore, and Smokescreen felt too emotionally drained at this point to fight a verbal battle.

Megatron must have felt it, because he hummed briefly, cuddling Smokescreen’s frame close as he finally entered the washracks. Only then did Smokescreen risk lighting his optics and taking a look around. He had had yet to discover this part of his cell, his ‘gilded cage’, and it didn’t feel him with any joy. Smokescreen wasn’t familiar enough with Decepticons’ installation to know if what he saw was standard or not, but the room was medium sized, covered in clear tiles, with a large tub big enough for two mechs of Megatron’s size and a nice looking cabin above which three different showerheads lurked. The Autobot looked at them wistfully; had he been able to stand… But since he couldn’t, he’d have to do with the tub

The rectangular contenant had been filled with water and a mix of solvent which had rendered the liquid inside opaque. A soft but slightly aggressive smell filled the air as Megatron hummed in approval.

“Good, good. You can leave us,” he waved to the two Vehicons as he strolled toward the tub. Smokescreen had expected him to just drop him into the tub, or if he was feeling magnanimous, to help him sit inside.

He hadn’t expected Megatron himself to climb in the water, still holding Smokescreen in his arms, and then to start sitting down.

“E… eh! What’s the big idea?!” The Autobot sputtered, thrashing as he tried to get Megatron to release him. Surprisingly, the former gladiator let go and Smokescreen suddenly found himself with water up to his chin, the water displaced crashing over him in waves and filling his mouth when he opened it to cry out in surprise. Just as suddenly as Megatron had released him, he grabbed him again and, to Smokescreen’s mortification, made him sat in his laps. He coughed, trying to sooth his intakes then versed his head back to glare at the Warlord. “Why…?”

“Why, little mech, I told you. I’m going to help you bath,” Megatron said smoothly. “But since Jeeves filled the tub too much for someone your size, and since the tub is large enough for two, I thought I’d be friendly and help you keep your helm out of the water. Besides, I could have used a bath myself,” he mused, but it was obvious it wasn’t spontaneous.

Smokescreen glowered, clenched his dental plates and looked away.

Great. Just great. Stuck in a tub with Megatron, and no possibility to escape him unless he wanted to end up in deep water. Thankfully, the Warlord didn’t seem to want and strike a conversation. He just leaned against the edge of the rub, silent, arms laced around Smokescreen’s waist securely. Smokescreen tried to remain sitting right, his back straight, but after a moment, Megatron silently tugged at his doorwing until Smokescreen caught the message and leaned against him, slightly turned, his cheek resting on the ex-gladiator’s chestplate just above his Spark chamber. The young Autobot could feel the warmth through the heavily reinforced armor.

He swallowed. It felt so weird… And not even a bad weird, no, more like a ‘I’ve already felt something like that’ weird. Which made no sense at all!

… Except if Megatron was right and Smokescreen was his Creation. If so, then Smokescreen’s EM field and Spark were picking on the resemblances between his owns and the Warlord’s, and reacting accordingly. In such close proximity, and despite the danger, Smokescreen couldn’t stop his body to slowly relax as his systems got used to the presence of the other Spark nestled against him. It felt good… and it felt wrong, so, so wrong.

A soft keen escaped him and he shuttered his optics, less cooling and cleansing fluids would drop down his cheeks. One of Megatron’s large clawed hands started to rub his back in slow circles, right between his doorwings, and Smokescreen’s keen became louder.

“Shhh, little one,” Megatron rumbled and frag it all, he sounded nice, and Smokescreen hated him for that! “Calm down…” His EM field flared, almost drowning Smokescreen’s, spreading all over the distraught Autobot as if trying to force him into complying. Smokescreen shuttered his optics and shook his head vigorously.

“I want it over. I want to get out of the bath.” He stuttered a little, but he managed to say it anyway. One of Megatron’s clawed fingers slide under his chin and tilted his head up gently but firmly. Smokescreen’s optics lighted again and he found himself staring into deep red oceans.

“Very well,” Megatron finally relented, though it was obvious he was unhappy with Smokescreen’s outburst. He was looking at him peculiarly too, and Smokescreen wondered briefly if it was him the Warlord was seeing right now, or this ‘Orion’ he kept saying was his Carrier. “Turn and lean forward.”

The order surprised Smokescreen, who obeyed by reflex. The next thing he knew, he was mewling as a sponge was rubbed carefully over his doorwings, lighting the sensors. Where had Megatron picked it from? Another sponge was dropped before him, splashing him. “Use that to do your arm and your front,” the Warlord rumbled. Not a fool and wanting out anyway, Smokescreen did it.

He wondered what it must have looked like for the Vehicon who had come back to hand near the door, holding large towels to help them dry themselves -- Smokescreen suspected Megatron had send him a comm. Here he was, rubbing frantically his arms, while Megatron has dropped the sponge in favor or a thin brush he was carefully using over Smokescreen’s doorwings joints, his touch light and secure. It betrayed experience at taking care of back protrusions, and Smokescreen wondered how the Warlord had gained it.

Truth to be told, he was happy when Megatron finished and after a quick ‘are you done?’, lifted him out of the tub. Solvent-laced water dripped everywhere, instantly forming large puddles over the tiled floor. The Vehicon -- Nestor, if he had to judge by the colors -- had already opened a towel and carefully draped Smokescreen in the folds of the absorbent fabric, gently rubbing it all over the Autobot’s damp plating. Smokescreen fidgeted uneasily during the process, put out by the fact Megatron was still holding him, unwilling to let him go even to dry himself. Jeeves, Smokescreen was surprised to notice, dried him up instead, moving all around the large Decepticon’s frame silently and with great efficacy.

Ugh. Weird. Very, very weird. And very uncomfortable too. Smokescreen couldn’t help squirming, which in turn make Megatron tightened his hold to the point it almost hurt. “Stay still.”

Smokescreen didn’t quite still. His squirming diminished, but he still tried to twist his body out of Megatron’s embrace. “Let go.”

“Not yet, little mech. I’d drop you on the floor.”

Of course he would. But Smokescreen didn’t care. By this point, Megatron’s touch was starting to become intolerable, and he wanted out. “I’m tired. I want to go to recharge.” It was a white lie -- he was indeed tired, but even if he tried, he didn’t think he’d be able to fall into recharge. His fuel tank wasn’t rolling uneasily anymore, but his processor was filtering too many information for him to be able to initiate recharge protocols. Still, it must have sounded credible enough, because the Warlord nodded.

“Of course, my son.” And now Smokescreen had the feeling Megatron knew full well he was lying, but was humoring him anyway. Unless it was his way to show he could be ‘nice’? Well, respecting Smokescreen’s private space wasn’t going to help him, not after he had had him amputated!

He locked his arms around the Warlord’s neck as the large grey mech made his way toward the berth. The mesh covers and the pillows had been changed, Smokescreen noted as he was gently sat down on the edge, probably while he was ‘relaxing’ in the bath. He immediately started to crawl toward the center of the berth, trying to put some distance between himself and Megatron. It was for none, though, as the Warlord sat down on the edge himself and reached out for Smokescreen with one arm, dragging him back toward him.

“Hey, what are you…?” he protested feebly, trying to push Megatron away from him. The Warlord just grabbed his wrists, though, and looked at him for a moment in perfect silence. Then, without warnings, he leaned forward and kissed Smokescreen’s forehelm.

The Autobot stood frozen for several kliks, trying to make sense of what had just happened -- of what was still happening. Megatron’s lips components were still resting on his forehelm, warm and pliable. Oh Primus, what did he think he was doing?! Smokescreen’s optics widened and he tried to lean back, only for Megatron to lean forward and pressing himself against him, not breaking the kiss. In panic, Smokescreen jerked his head back and brought it forward again violently, hitting Megatron in the face. His helm grated against the Warlord’s olfactive sensor.

Megatron let go of his wrists and pushed him back with a roar and Smokescreen fell on his back, yelping. The Warlord rubbed his face frantically, glaring at the doorwinged mech with all his might. “Why. Did. You. Do. That?” he hissed coldly, but it was clear violence was lurking behind each of his words.

Smokescreen put himself on his elbows and tried to put some distance between him and the Warlord. “What about you?! What was… what was that?!” he choked out as Megatron grabbed him by one of his stumps and dragged him back.

“Is a Creator not allowed to kiss his Creation goodnight?” the Warlord growled, making Smokescreen blink and freeze. What…? He shook his surprise off as much as could and shaking and stammering, he tried to formulate an answer to that. Goodnight kisses? From MEGATRON? Did the mech really thought Smokescreen would react well to it? Or did he think the Autobot too shaken already to oppose a resistance?

“Creators, perhaps, but not monsters! Not you! Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me! You have no right to! You may be my Sire, but that doesn’t mean you have any right over me!”

Smokescreen’s optics widened. He had meant to blurt out something, but not… that. With dread, he watched Megatron’s face change subtly. Surprise, anger and -- was it a hint of pain Smokescreen briefly saw? -- what seemed to be a brief flash of satisfaction rapidly passed through his expression before the face of the grey mech became blank.

“Really?” Megatron’s voice was neutral, but it terrified him beyond words. “Is that so?” He grabbed Smokescreen again and threw him over his lap, face down. Smokescreen cried out and tried to wiggle out, but without his legs, he couldn’t move as he wished to. One clawed, powerful hand pressed against the back of his helm and he froze. “I think you forgot something, little mech. Here, you have no orders to give -- especially not to ME!” the last word was shouted so loud it made Smokescreen audio ring briefly. “Now, I won’t contest your claims I’m a monster, since it would be useless, wouldn’t it? But you’re clearly mistaken if you think I have ‘no right over you’, Smokescreen,” he purred.

His hand slide over Smokescreen’s back, in between the doorwings, and came to rest at the small of his back. “It may have escaped you, but I know how to count. I know how old you are, at a few orbital cycles close. And do you know what, my son?” He was leaning forward and breathing loudly, making Smokescreen squirm as he tried still to crawl out of his uncomfortable position. “You may try to act grown up and tough, but you’re not of age according to Iacon’s laws.”

“I’m…”

“Praxian? I think we cleared that earlier, little mech,” Megatron purred. Smokescreen fought back a sob; he didn’t to think back about it! Praxus, the certainly it had been his home, was all he had had! And now, the Warlord had robbed him of that certainty! He wished he could delete the whole conversation from his CPU, but editing memories wasn’t so simple, and the words had shaken him too much for him to try and dare erasing them. Especially since even if he tried, Megatron would be right here to remind him again and again.

Megatron’s hand was sliding again over his back, as if Smokescreen was a large cybercat to be petted. “No, Praxus isn’t your home. You’re considered a citizen of the city your highest Caste Creator come from, according to the ‘Golden Age’ laws. And according to those laws, you still have to submit to parental authority -- MY authority, in this case. Your Carrier not being here, I have full right to decide what an appropriate punishment will be,” he added eerily. His hand was resting over the younger mech’s aft. Smokescreen swallowed. Why did he have a suspicion of where Megatron was heading?

The first hit over his aft didn’t surprise him. It was painful, it was fast and he cried out, but it didn’t actually surprise him. In a way, Smokescreen had expected it since the moment he had been sprawled down over Megatron’s lap. He had ended up in that position several times in Sparklinghood, and he knew what it usually heralded.

The second, third and fourth hits came fast and hard, and Smokescreen choked down on his cries. “Stop!”

“‘Stop’?” Megatron purred. “I don’t think so, son. Since apparently no one told you not to hit your Creator, I’ll take upon me to teach you that lesson. Besides,” he purred, “I think I repeated time and time again not to push me, didn’t I?”

The spanking resumed immediately with even more intensity. Smokescreen screamed and flailed helplessly, his stumps not allowing him enough move to escape -- even if Megatron’s hand over his back had allowed him to move and roll over. Each hit was fast and brutal, the Warlord obviously not holding back his strength, even if he seemed oddly careful not to scratch Smokescreen with his claws. The Autobot whimpered, shouted and cried, cleansing fluid leaking from his optics as he begged, actually begged Megatron to stop.

The Warlord didn’t. Not for what felt like an eternity though according to his chronometer, it hadn’t even lasted one quarter of a megacycle.

His aft was on fire. His pain receptors were all alight and blazing. Smokescreen hiccuped, frame shaking. Slag, it had hurt, hurt so much! He hadn’t thought it’d be so bad.

For a moment, he stayed there, sprawled over the Warlord’s lap until Megatron seemed satisfied he wasn’t back talking or trying to fight him off anymore. Smokescreen couldn’t help the shudder that went through him as a clawed hand gently stroked his shoulder. He didn’t fight when he was turned over to lie on his back, but couldn’t help a choked, pained sob when his sore aft rubbed against the Warlord’s lap. One sharp digit stroked his cheeks, brushing away the path of tears.

Megatron was looking down at him with a very neutral expression. “I didn’t enjoy it, Youngling, and I think you didn’t either.” His lips quirked briefly before his face became bland once more. “I trust you’re smart enough not to push my buttons again? If you’re not, then I fear a spanking will be the last of your worries. Knock Out has a very handy energon prod -- and I must still have an energon whip somewhere in storage. And yes, I would use them on my own Creation should I feel it warranted.” His optics were dark as he looked at Smokescreen’s still, shocked form. “Don’t force me to have to use them, little mech. Am I clear?”

Smokescreen bit his lips and nodded. Megatron watched him a moment longer before sighing and gently, oh so gently make him slide out of his lap and onto the berth’s thick mattress. Smokescreen rolled over and hide his face into the mesh, shoulders shaking and optics shuttered. His shoulder was gently patted and a cover was drawn over him, and he felt Megatron’s weight lifting from the berth.

“I’ll let you rest now. I think we will have further occasions to speak… soon. In the meanwhile, should you wish or need for anything, Nestor and Jeeves will remain at your disposition. I trust you’ll be a good mech. Won’t you be, Smokescreen?”

The Autobot didn’t answer and didn’t dare to look at him. Biting into the pillow next to his face, he tried to refrain his sobs until the Warlord was gone. He didn’t want to end up in tears -- well, further in tears -- before him.

When he heard the steps getting away and the door opening and closing, he let go and started to shout. It was primal, visceral, filled with pain, confusion, horror. Everything that had happened, from the start of the dinner and it's cortege of unwelcome and unsettle revelations to the brutal spanking came crashing down, and he cried. Cried. Cried. He hit the mattress with his fists, bit into his pillows several more times.

It lasted for a while. He couldn’t say how much. He just knew that, by the end of it, Nestor was gently pressing a small cube of energon in his hand and helped him gulp down a sip or two. The Vehicon was silent, not judging, and it felt almost good to have his quiet presence by his side -- even if he was the enemy. Even if Smokescreen felt so lost he didn’t know what to say or feel anymore.

And so recharge, when he entered it, felt both like a curse and a relief.


	6. Chapter 6

“Given your surly looks, one has to wonder if perhaps you don’t enjoy being in my company, little mech.” Megatron leaned in his chair, his empty plate before him, his optics calmly observing Smokescreen as the young Autobot toyed with his fork, poking at the salad of vaporator mushrooms without raising his optics to meet the Warlord’s.

Another solar cycle, another formal ‘dinner’. Four solar cycles had gone since the last one. Smokescreen suspected it was going to become a pattern; Megatron would come and see him for one evening, then let him fester in solitude for several solar cycles in a row, his mind full of questions and denials until he broke. And not only would the Warlord come, but he would also make sure his visits would be memorable, thus why instead of a cube of energon, they’d be playing ‘civilized’ mechs and ‘enjoy a nice, fancy meal’.

Smokescreen was sure he was doing that to… to destabilize him and slag, it was working!

“I don’t know what makes you say that,” the Autobot replied flatly, still poking at his salad without eating. He hadn’t touched much to his daily fuel rations since Megatron’s last visit, his appetite having dropped ever since the insidious knowledge Megatron might be (was) telling the truth blossomed in his CPU. He made an effort to sip at each cube he was presented with, but he rarely finished any, not even the evening cube of warm, sweet energon Jeeves and Nestor had started presenting him every night since the… the kiss incident.

Funnily enough, he hadn’t been able to sleep so easily in recharge until they did hand him those cubes of carefully dosed and spiced fuel. Sure, the beverage in itself was supposed to be relaxing, but Smokescreen had the sneaky feeling he was being drugged. Not with something very heavy or harmful, if the only thing he did was recharge like a downed mech, but drugged still. Any other time, he would have been horrified or angered, ready to fight and demand explanations, even if it lead to another confrontation with Megatron. And he knew it would; he was under no illusion about Jeeves and Nestor. They were servants, they were his minders, and they were also Megatron’s spies to know if he was ‘behaving’.

The scary thing, though? At this point, he didn’t care.

“Oh, just an impression.” Megatron’s voice was light, as if he didn’t truly care, but his optics never left Smokescreen. “If you have finished massacring your mushrooms, perhaps you’d like dessert?” Smokescreen paused in his pokes, finally lifting his face to look at the Warlord, who didn’t look very impressed. “By the way, little mech, I’m not happy with you. What you did is a waste of fuel resources, not to mention an affront to the time Jeeves spend cooking and putting the dishes together. Vaporator mushrooms don’t grow in a megacycle.”

And he was chiding him at that! Smokescreen’s cheeks burned as he fought down the urge to swear. After what happened during Megatron’s last visit, he knew better than to. Still, he wasn’t going to take things quietly. “I seem to remember they’re fast growing. And funny you’d mention that; given the size and state of the Nemesis, I would have thought it had become your primary fuel source,” he snipped.

He watched Megatron’s face for any reaction but the Warlord just frowned briefly. “Unlike what you seem to think, the ship’s machinery is well-maintained and we don’t need to pick wild vaporator mushrooms out of the engines room,” the grey mech said easily. “And I can assure you those particular mushrooms took time and care to grow. The ones you did not enjoy tonight have been specifically cultivated for nutrition. A hobby from some of the Vehicons. Everybody needs something the pass the time, don’t they?”

Smokescreen flushed, for more than one reason. Why did he think he could win a point in their covert battle of slight? He looked down again at the salad he had barely touched, the bland grey of the fungus still has unappealing as ever. The Autobot wasn’t stranger to vaporator mushrooms, especially raw, bad quality ones. It wasn’t for nothing they were known as the ‘beggar fuel’.

Cybertron didn’t have much when it came to flora, but the vaporator mushrooms were a constant. They had been named such because the first species observed had been found growing on moisture vaporator, at a time the Sciences Caste was trying to find new way to gather and purify water for experiments. Rust-colored or grey, neon blue or lime green, they grew in the dark, damp places on Cybertron, between machines ill-maintained, above sewer systems, in wet little corner between buildings, in dry mines galleries or, if a mech’s hygiene was especially poor, in-between gears. Some were pretty and harmless and most were edible -- even if their taste was awful -- but mushrooms outbreaks grew fast and spread wide if not carefully controlled. The wild kinds used to, at any rate.

Back in the Golden Age, factories used to have whole teams whose sole purpose was the picking of the parasites. Anyway, since they grew everywhere and could be picked by anyone, mechs low on credits, especially in the Low Castes, used to pick them to complete or even replace their fuel allotment. The mushrooms were poor in most trace elements, and they couldn’t replace more filling fuel sources, but at least they allowed you to have something in your tank.

After the outbreak of the war, when refineries had stopped working and fuel had started to become sparse, vaporator mushrooms had become the de-facto food for refugees. That is until even they became harder and harder to find. Smokescreen had eaten more than his share as a Sparkling, and he remembered desperately foraging for them along with other Younglings as he grew up. Perhaps it was the reason he found them almost unpalatable; they just brought forward too many bad memories. Which brought the question: how could Megatron enjoy them? As a former miner, Smokescreen would have thought he hated that stuff, but the Warlord hadn’t left a single slice.

Smokescreen pushed his plate away. “Forgive me if I’m not more enthusiastic.” Nestor picked it up without a word and put in its place a chrome-alloy pie the size of Smokescreen’s hand. Despite himself, the Autobot felt his tank give a pang of hunger as he considered the dessert and he winced. He really had a ‘sweet tooth’, hadn’t he?

“Enthusiasm has nothing to do with a meal. Fuel is fuel, especially in troubled times when there are mechs starving everywhere, and so it should never be mindlessly wasted,” Megatron stated simply. Smokescreen looked at him weirdly. It was a very strange statement coming from Megatron of all mechs. Honestly, it felt more like something Optimus Prime would have said, and Megatron was nothing like the Autobots’ beloved leader. Nothing!

The Warlord wasn’t finished, though. “As it is, little mech, I wonder if I shouldn’t take back that dessert of yours in order to teach you a lesson. I’ve heard withholding goodies is a good ways to teach Sparklings how to be nice and obedient,” he mentioned offhandedly. Smokescreen stared at him, mouth opening and closing without a sound. Had Megatron just called him a Sparkling?! What did he think Smokescreen was?!

“I’m not a Sparkling!” And just as he said it, he realized he was playing Megatron’s game and almost facepalmed. The Warlord’s booming laughter was proof enough Smokescreen should have just shut up.

“Is that so, little mech? That’s not what I’ve heard.” Slag, his smile was showing far too much teeth for Smokescreen’s comfort. “I’ve been lead to believe you spend a lot of time entranced in the adventures of ‘Bob The Insecticon’.” There were even more teeth showing now.

Smokescreen stalled and sputtered, glowering as he glared first at the Vehicons who were silently waiting on the side then at the obviously greatly amused Megatron. “That… I was not entranced! I was bored!” Smokescreen defended himself as he thought about the stack of datapads he had been handed in the last few solar cycles.

In desperation to occupy his mind and stop helplessly thinking about Megatron and everything having to do with him, Smokescreen had relented and ordered the Vehicons to give him every datapads on the first range of the library shelves. Reading, he had hoped, would help him pass the time smoothly. It had been clear the pads hadn’t been classed, mixing dry scientific texts and fictions along with history files and poetry and of course, fictions. Including, to Smokescreen’s surprise, Sparkling and Youngling’s literature. ‘Bob the Insecticon’ had been a popular series before the war, although Smokescreen had never read any. As he had wanted something light, easy to understand and truly been desperate for any form of occupation, he had indeed started to read the series. He had also read plenty of other stuff! Not just Sparklings pads! But of course Megatron wouldn’t focus on them! Just to annoy him!

And the slagger was still smirking after his laugh had diminished, red optics dancing with mirth as they watched Smokescreen! “I’m sure you were,” he said smoothly. “How mature of you to have chosen those texts, though. A most bold choice…”

“I said it was just because I was bored!” Smokescreen snapped. “I don’t even know why you had it filled in the library shelves. Where did you even pick a copy, uh?” A sudden idea traversed him, a taunt that shouldn’t land him in trouble, since the Warlord was obviously amused by those pads. “What’s to say they didn’t belong to you in the first place?” There; sly, somewhat insulting, but not enough to warrant a strong reaction. Smokescreen almost felt pleased with himself, even if Megatron’s smirk hadn’t diminished.

“As a matter of fact, most bookfiles in your shelves were generously donated and located in the Vehicons’ quarters, including some of the ‘Bob the Insecticon’ series. Excellent texts to learn how to read, don’t you think?” He tapped his chin with one finger. “I’ll admit one of those was mine, though. A gift from your Carrier.” He snorted. “Orion could have the strangest sense of humor when it came to bookfiles.” His expression had become far more neutral and closed off, and Smokescreen recognized the signs it was a subject he’d better not push.

The Autobot avoided his gaze and looked down at his still intact chrome-alloy pie. He supposed he ought to eat it before Megatron started going off about ‘fuel waste’ yet again. With small, picky gesture, he used a fork to cut pieces out of the soft treat and started gobbling them down. The pie was just as good as he imagined it would be, and it soothed him slightly.

“But let’s talk more about your readings, shall we?” Megatron said suddenly, startling Smokescreen and almost making his choke on the piece he was swallowing. “Did you enjoy the rest of the bookfiles? Any favorite, asides of the adventures of the innocent Insecticon? Perhaps you found yourself attracted to the practical jokes of the Kremzeek?” he smirked.

Smokescreen snorted, letting go of his fork and crossing his arms over his chest. “As if! Do you really take me for such a… a kid?” He hated the Kremzeek stories; they were just plain awful, but the bad taste jokes seemed to have been enjoyed by generations of young Cybertronians. “If you must really know, I rather enjoyed the poetry.” He didn’t know why he said that. His interest in poems was something he rarely shared with anyone, let alone with enemies. Still, he enjoyed them. The cadence, the descriptions, the feelings they brought forth always struck something deep into the young Autobot. He almost expected Megatron to laugh at him and dismiss his interest, but to his surprise, the Warlord straightened.

“Oh? Is that so?” Smokescreen tensed. There was something in Megatron’s voice… He couldn’t decide if it was genuine curiosity or if something was lurking behind those words. “And do you happen to have a favorite author, little mech?”

Smokescreen shrugged. “Not really. Sky-Byte’s stuff is interesting, and Cadence’s prose during the pre-Nova Prime period offers some interesting insight on the life as it was during the last vorns of the Dark Age.” Actually, he did have one author he enjoyed more than the rest but… Could he share it? What would be the point anyway? He didn’t want the conversation to become too personal anyway, because it felt like he was betraying… well, he didn’t know he was betraying, but he had the feeling he shouldn’t talk too much with Megatron, whatever the subject was. Everything felt like a covert interrogation, and it probably was. It wasn’t about the Autobots, about secret intel -- not yet anyway -- but Smokescreen was under no illusion Megatron asked those things by pure selflessness. And still… “The poems of Dee,” he finally grumbled uneasily. Megatron seemed to perk up.

“What was that, Youngling?”

“The poems of Dee,” Smokescreen repeated simply before sighing. “Well, it’s not their real name, but it’s the best we came with -- at the Archives, I mean,” he fumbled under Megatron’s sudden interest. “The author was anonymous and only signed them with the letter ‘D’. They were spread all over the place, not even regrouped in a real, single pad. Eck, I’m not even sure we found them all!” He raised his hands in surrender. “We had to clear some old computers and they were stocked on it, and we couldn’t just delete this stuff without checking first if they could be important! So of course we read them, the other Cadets and I. They were good,” he murmured. “A little rough sometimes, but I guess those were the earlier works. Dee’s poems… I don’t know why they caught my attention like that, when they’re so many recognized writers already catalogued and identified.” He paused, remembering the start of the first he had read. “The way he described the ‘eternal grounds of the night, illuminated by the light of false faraway stars’ was really moving. Took me a while to recognize he was speaking of…”

“The energon mines, when they were still fully working,” Megatron completed, shuttering his optics as Smokescreen blinked, taken aback. “Yes, there was a certain beauty to them, despite the filth and the accidents. When the supervisors weren’t on our backs, that’s it,” he finally snorted. The gaze he focused on Smokescreen was suddenly very considering, and the Autobot fidgeted as he realized Megatron was… approving? Yes, he was, Smokescreen realized with a startle. Approving and even proud. Uh. Okay, what was going on here?

“This is an interesting choice of reading,” the Warlord said after a moment of silence, nodding. “Certainly more mature and adult than ‘Bob’ at any rate.” And he was teasing him again! Smokescreen seethed and threw his arms in the air.

“Would you stop treating me like a Sparkling! Primus, the next thing, you’ll be handing me a teddy bear!”

“A teddy bear?”

Smokescreen flushed. “You know. One of those plush toys the young humans like to hug and play with?” From Megatron’s expression, it was clear the Warlord had no idea what he was talking about, and Smokescreen felt self-conscious for knowing such things about human Sparklings. Then again, given there were always three hanging around the Autobot base, he had had plenty of time to get acquainted with some aspect of the human culture.

“Hmm. Interesting.”

… Why did Smokescreen didn’t like the sound of that word? Before he could say or ask anything, though, Megatron started frowning and raised a hand to his audio receptor, as if he was hearing something only he could. The Autobot bit his lips as he realized the Warlord was receiving a comm. With a pang, he thought about his own communication array. The Decepticons hadn’t removed it surgically as they did his T-Cog and his legs, but the Nemesis’ computer and, he suspected, Soundwave’s monitoring were completely blocking them. If he had been able to, he would have contacted the Autobot base already, if only to let them know he was alive. Sadly, there was only one short distance channel open to him -- and although Smokescreen hadn’t tried it yet, he had the sinking feeling he knew exactly whom he would contact with it: the mech sitting across him.

Megatron’s expression grew more thunderous and he growled before snapping. “I’m coming.”

He looked at Smokescreen, still looking discontent, although he quickly took back a more neutral expression. “I hadn’t planned to, but I must sadly leave you early. Some of my troops have been idiots,” he groused as he rose. “I trust we will be spending more time which each other another time. Nestor and Jeeves will help you bath and get you back to berth.”

“How nice of them,” Smokescreen drawled. He barely refrained from sighing in relief; after what happened the last time, he didn’t fancy having Megatron’s help for bathing ever again. The feeling of his EM field drowning his, of his Spark calming him despite Smokescreen’s processor not wanting to be calmed… It was too unsettling. Plus, if he tried to ‘kiss him goodnight’ again, Smokescreen thought he might purge. Grudgingly admitting they could (were) related was one thing; close contact was another can of cyberworms entirely.

So yeah, bath time with Megatron was not on his list of fun activities. He had actually dreaded the moment he’d have to go through it, as his earlier attempts to get cleaned had been denied by the Vehicons, obviously on Megatron’s orders.

Megatron didn’t seem amused by his cheek but didn’t comment. Instead, he walked around the table and patted Smokescreen’s helm, ignoring the Autobots’ protests. “I’m sorry our plans for the evening fell short, but I promise I’ll make it up to you, son.”

“Oh, don’t feel obligated to,” Smokescreen snarked.

Megatron smirked. “Oh, but I insist! And I think you’ll like what I have in mind for our next meeting…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, come on, how could I resist bringing in Bob, even in a fictional way? XD  
> 


	7. Chapter 7

A teddy bear. Megatron had actually brought him a teddy bear.

Jaw agape, cheeks reddening in embarrassment and cursing himself for even mentioning the damned thing -- because where else would the Warlord had found such an idea? -- Smokescreen contemplated the ‘surprise’ Megatron had just ended him after dessert.

Smokescreen knew that humans stuffed toys weren’t anatomically correct. Humans liked to make their fauna appear cute and harmless for their young, when in truth, most of the animals they stuffed into their Sparklings’ arms were savage beasts -- or at least potentially dangerous ones. He knew that because he had watched a documentary or two with Raf, whenever the littlest of the humans managed to grab the ‘remote’ away from Miko.

So he knew the stuffed bear before him was just an approximation of the real thing, with it’s beady black optics -- buttons, and the correct name was ‘eyes’, if he remembered right -- no claws or fangs to defend himself, and no… well, that part they had between the legs. He poked awkwardly the white synthetic fur, surprised by how soft it felt. He was also surprised by the toy sheer size; unless he was mistaken, it was actually a few centimeters taller than Agent Fowler. It would have dwarfed the kids. What was the point in creating toys that were taller than your Younglings?

“Do you enjoy your gift, little mech?”

He looked up at Megatron with a twitch. “Where the Pit did you find it?”

“Language, little mech,” Megatron chided and waved. “Oh, one of those stores humans have for their progeny’s games. The Vehicon I send stole the bigger model.”

“Stealing is…”

Megatron snorted. “Please, do not serve me such generalities as ‘stealing is wrong’. In a time of war, nobody can afford to live by such rules and the Autobots aren’t exempt.” His lips curled into a rictus, as if he remembered something unpleasant. “Now, I asked you a question: do you enjoy your gift?”

Truth or lie? Smokescreen bit his lips, trying to decide. “Can’t say I really do,” he finally said as airily as he could, “though I suppose it’s the thought which count. You do realize I was being sarcastic about the whole ‘teddy bear’ thing, right?” he added after a moment of silence.

Megatron just hummed, lips curling playfully for a brief moment. “Consider this is my perfectly sarcastic answer, then.” Smokescreen almost facepalmed. “And even if you say you don’t like… Well, I’ll consider it as a start. Orion wasn’t easy to please either when it came to gifts. Granted, gifting him with the weapons of the gladiators I trashed in the arenas was a bad start for courting someone from the Data Caste,” he mused.

Smokescreen swallowed. Weapons from dead or maimed mechs… and that ‘Orion’ hadn’t fled immediately at the sight? The mech had to have been insane, or incredibly brave. Or too much of a foul when it came to his tastes in mechs, he mentally added after a few kliks. He couldn’t help but be curious, though.

The way Megatron spoke of Orion… it implied a lot of feelings, good or bad depending on Megatron’s mood. And according to Megatron, this unknown mech was his Carrier. Since he looked nothing like Megatron, just how much had he inherited from his other Creator? What sort of mech had he been? Or should he say ‘is’? Because Megatron had all but stated Smokescreen had met him already. But when? Where? He would have remembered a name like ‘Orion’ had he met someone with that designation!

“What was he like?” he blurted out before putting a hand over his mouth. Slag. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud!

And judging by the sudden tension in Megatron’s shoulders and the way he narrowed his optics, the Warlord hadn’t been expecting the question either. “I would have thought you knew,” he said scattingly.

“Never met the mech, remember?” Smokescreen snapped back, wondering if he was right to pursue the matter. It was clear Megatron wasn’t happy, but… “I grew up with refugees and on different Autobot outposts, it’s not like I ever crossed path with him growing up. Eck, I didn’t even believe he was real until…” he paused. The words ‘until you convinced me you were my Sire’ went unsaid, but they hung heavily in the air. Megatron’s tapped a claw against the table and Smokescreen sagged. “Look… you pretend he’s my Carrier, but how can you be sure? After all, he mustn’t have the only mech you ever hung around.” He was trying to sound casual, but he had the sinking feeling he was failing.

Thankfully, the implied ‘you may have been spreading your transfluid around’ comment which Smokescreen hadn’t truly meant to say went over Megatron’s helm -- or he choose to ignore it, because he didn’t react. Just looked at Smokescreen with a scary intensity.

“Far too nice, too stupid, too naive and too stubborn for his own good,” Megatron finally grunted after a moment. He gestured at Jeeves to serve him a flute of high grade, which he downed immediately. He toyed with the empty crystal container, his expression serious and distant at the same time. “I shouldn’t have been surprised. Orion saw, just as I did, how oppressive the Caste systems had become and like me, he wished for change to sweep through Cybertron, to bring a fairer life for every mech. No longer would we be bound by the Functionalists and their rotten heritage! A mech would be free to choose his own path, away from the harsh restrictions imposed on him from the moment he emerged!”

Smokescreen leaned back in his seat, optics wide. Megatron looked… very passionated during his speech. If he hadn’t known what kind of monster the Warlord truly was, if he hadn’t seen the ravages he brought to Cybertron, he could have been tempted to listen and believe him. Almost.

The Warlord’s passion seemed to abate suddenly. “Of course, I should have realized much sooner that Orion’s privileged background would stop him from realizing how deep the corruption run and would make him balk from the right, necessary methods to bring the start of the new era.” He was looking at his empty flute with a very dark expression, and Smokescreen wondered briefly if he was going to throw it at the wall -- or worse, at him -- in a fit of rage. “I should have foresaw how easily swayed he would be by the lies and the allures of the ruling Castes, even if he still pretended to see the necessity of change. If I had know for sure, however, I would never have allowed him to approach the Council; I would have taken him away from Iacon, and away from their lies before they turned him against me!”

As Smokescreen had foreseen, the flute when flying and broke into pieces against the wall. Still silent, Jeeves went to pick up the shards -- and Smokescreen was surprised that his arm actually transformed into a broom! What the frag?! -- while Nestor handed Megatron another flute, full this time. Megatron gulped it all, still seething. As for Smokescreen, he watched him warily, with the same attention he would have given a razor-viper about to strike. Then again, a razor-viper would have been less dangerous than Megatron in a rage. Especially since he couldn’t run away from him.

As Megatron downed flute after flute, it left Smokescreen with time to think and ponder over the few informations he had been able to gather from Megatron’s rant. Orion, from the Warlord’s holes-filled tale, had been some kind of revolutionary -- or at least, a protester during the tense period which had preceded the start of the war. Smokescreen had little info about it -- the war had truly kicked before he was born, and when one had to survive on scraps from a young age, he paid little attention to politics and more to how and when will he get his next cube of energon.

Still, he tried to picture him. He could almost imagine Orion; a young mech -- at least younger than Megatron -- admonished at the way the system worked, an idealist who had been looking for a way to make his ideas know. Megatron’s early rallies, long before he formed the Decepticons, had had a reputation for being calm and open to all. In those conditions, he could almost see how a data archivist might have encountered and taken an interest into an ex-miner turned gladiator to the point of… becoming intimate.

But it was clear, from what Smokescreen understood, that Orion hadn’t been an extremist -- and so, not a Decepticon. That… was a relief. Knowing his existence came in part from Megatron (even if he refused to acknowledge it aloud) was off-putting to say the least, but to imagine his Carrier might also have been a crazy mech bend on world domination…

Not that he had ever really thought so, since Megaton had said Orion had left him. The mech had probably turned smart or too scared by the length Megatron was willing to go to and made a run for it. Then… Then what? He had realized he was Carrying, had Smokescreen while in hiding in Praxus and abandoned him there while he disappeared into thin air? No, that couldn’t be that; Megatron had all but stated he had continued to monitor Orion’s moves after he left him -- oooh, the Autobot was picking creepy stalker vibes here! He had heard of mechs who took separation badly, but he was certain Megatron ought to have a category all his own. Still, Megatron’s surveillance mustn’t have been as good as he thought, if Smokescreen’s existence had totally escaped him. Which, all things considered, was probably for the better; he shuddered as he considered what growing up with Megatron would have been like.

And that brought forth the question: what had happened to Orion? The way Megatron spoke of him implied he was dead… but at the same time, Megatron spoke of him as if he wasn’t.

“What… what did become of him? Is he still alive?” he finally asked carefully after a long moment of consideration. He was half-afraid Megatron would fly into another rage, but to his surprise, the Warlord just laughed darkly, a ugly rictus on his lips.

“Alpha Trion never told you? Why doesn’t that surprise me; the old coot kept his secrets close.” He snorted in disgust and Smokescreen tensed, doorwings raised high. “The Orion I knew is dead,” he stated harshly. “The one who replaced him, who bears his face, took another name.” He looked at Smokescreen with hard optics for a moment, grim and calculating. “Autobots must be bad at teaching history to the new generation if you’re not aware. Or perhaps the ruling Elite was too ashamed a simple data clerk was able to rise so high in their precious power spheres.”

A chill went down Smokescreen’s spinal strut and his doorwings rose ever higher. ‘Bears’, not ‘bore’. Meaning, whoever this Orion was, he was was indeed still alive. He swallowed, feeling suddenly dizzy. His core temperature had spiked up suddenly.

“... Is he an Autobot General then?” he asked in a voice he tried to keep steady, though he failed and it wavered slightly. That… would explain why Megatron seemed to both hate and love Orion -- why he spoke sometimes of the mech with fondness, but at other moments with such bitterness it was almost choking. And it fitted: what Megatron would hate more than a lover who left his side to join the enemy faction? Plus, it was true that the Council, before it was almost entirely wiped out, was considered of snobs who wouldn’t have liked to promulgate the modest origins of some of their strategists and warriors. At least, that was what Alpha Trion had said once while Smokescreen helped him move crates of datapads to a vault.

Oh yes, it would explain so much. His mind scrambled to remember the name of all the great Autobot Generals who had been part of the conflict since it’s very beginning and were still alive. Or presumed alive; with the exodus from Cybertron, it was hard to say. There was Dai Atlas, Prowl, Ultra Magnus,... He could easily come up with a dozen names. Could one of them truly be his Carrier? If he was honest with himself, it sounded too ridiculous to be believable, but it was his best theory so far.

Megatron’s dark chuckle took him by surprise, and he watched and listened uneasily as it grew into a full, almost hysterical laughter. “A General? Oh little mech, you’re priceless!” the Warlord finally roared between two fits of laughter. Now Smokescreen was really getting worried; his fuel tank sank as something nudged the back of his processor, something for which he didn’t have words. It was just the flicker of a suspicion, forgotten as soon as it had been raised, but so deeply ingrained already it caused him to feel unease, fear and hope without a clear reason.

Megatron brushed a tear of cleansing fluid off his cheek and grinned at Smokescreen with too many teeth. “Orion isn’t just a General, little mech. Or rather, Optimus Prime isn’t just a General.”

In the long joors which followed, Smokescreen wondered dimly if it was what it felt to be struck by the lightning of the Hydrax Plateau’s fabled thunderstorms. He stood frozen, systems buzzing, processors overdriven as they repeated the last two sentences of Megatron. His vents stalled. His hands shook as he let them drop to his side. He was vaguely aware his jaw had dropped in shock and that he must have been looking quite silly, especially with his optics flickering. His doorwings were fluttering madly; he felt them hit the back of the seat violently and repeatedly, but the pain didn’t register.

_‘Or rather, Optimus Prime isn’t just a General.’_  
‘Optimus Prime isn’t just a General.’  
‘Optimus Prime isn’t just...’  
‘Optimus Prime... ’  
‘Optimus Prime... ‘  
OptimusPrimeOptimusPrimeOptimusPrimeOptimusPrimeOptimusPrimeOptimusPrime… 

“Prime is… my Carrier?”

Had he truly said that? It sounded like his voice, quivering, hoarse, unsure, nothing like his usual confident tone -- though his confidence had taken a nosedive since he had been brought aboard the Nemesis. Smokescreen’s optics were full at he stared ahead at Megatron’s face, looking for… something. He couldn’t say what; the proof Megatron was lying, perhaps?

The nod he received in answer threatened to make his processor self-combust. “He is,” Megatron confirmed simply. His face was back to a neutral expression, though his optics were dancing with mirth. “I wonder how much dreadful he was as a Carrier, since he didn’t recognize you right away for who you were. But his loss is my gain,” he purred.

“You’re lying.”

His mouth was moving, his vocalizer was working, he was speaking, and yet he was not, Smokescreen mused. He felt far more calm than he had expected, almost… detached from it all. It felt as if he wasn’t in control of his own body anymore, as if his vocalizer had decided to start ruling the rest of his systems without bothering to inform them beforehand, and his CPU and motor relay were happy to let it handle the incoming trauma.

“You’re lying,” he repeated with the unreal calm which had seized his vocalizer, even if his Spark felt utterly frantic. “Optimus Prime has no heir. He never Carried a Sparkling. He never Sired one either. It is public knowledge. As such, he can’t be my Carrier, or anyone’s Carrier for that matter. The fact he is ‘Orion’, according to you, is debatable because you offer me no proof but your word, which is to be taken with a grain of salt all the time. This detail asides, it is impossible that the Autobots’ leader and greatest champion ever had an affair with the leader of the Decepticons, given their respective stands and values as well as the mutual hatred they share.”

He wasn’t feeling so well. Was it what happened when one’s processor was about to crash? Megatron’s optics on him weren’t helping any!

“Life is full of ironies such as this one, Youngling. But I can assure you Optimus Prime--” his lips curled in a twisted smile “--is the mech you’re searching for.”

“You lie.” Wow. How did his voice managed to stay so steady? “You can’t be telling the truth. Even assuming you were, there’d be records somewhere, medical files. And he would have recognized me. Better, he wouldn’t have abandoned me.”

His Spark surged and twisted painfully at those last words. Optimus couldn’t be his Carrier. Couldn’t be. Even if Megatron said so. Funny; the idea of having Optimus Prime as a Creator should have been easier to believe and swallow than the thought of Megatron being one of his progenitors, but… it wasn’t. The thought didn’t make Smokescreen ill like Megatron’s revelation had, and it didn’t terrify him beyond reason. But… it hurt. It hurt like a stab to the Spark. Because if Optimus Prime was his Carrier, surely he would have told Smokescreen the moment he had seen him? He would have recognized him, right?

… but he didn’t look much like Optimus, did he? Megatron seemed to think he did -- that he looked like Orion, at least -- but Smokescreen couldn’t see the resemblance. Perhaps in their colors, and it was a very thin proof to say the least. And… perhaps the Prime didn’t want to acknowledge him anyway. Not if half of his codings came from Megatron of all mechs. Perhaps it was the reason he had ended in Praxus to begin with, as far away of Iacon as possible. Couldn’t allow a tainted being like Megatron’s offspring to pollute the Prime’s palace -- which, if he remembered right, had been bombed quite early in the war alongside the old Senate’s building.

Primus, he was going to be sick.

“Would he?” Megatron said casually. “I think we can both attest he indeed abandoned you, can’t we? Of course, dear Orion must have had a reason, but he never did disclose it, didn’t he? Certainly not to me, and certainly not to you. And he didn’t search for you, did he?”

“You… You’re twisting everything!” Smokescreen shook his head, optics filled with cleansing fluid. His frame was overheating, his tank rolled and he just wanted to scream and bawl like a Sparkling while putting his hands over his audio receptor to not hear anything further. “Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking! You lie, you keep lying, I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you!!”

“Lying? Do I? Perhaps, perhaps not. What is sure is that your Carrier isn’t here beside you, where he should be. And who’s to blame, hum?”

“You!” Smokescreen blurted, pushing his chair back and moving to stand and jump on his feet… only to remember too late he didn’t have legs anymore. Lost in his denial, he had totally forgotten he couldn’t anymore. He crashed to the ground with a yelp and immediately curled into a ball, hiding his face in his hands as shakes rattled his bodies. The sobs which started to follow where, sadly, entirely predictable, and they kept becoming more and more violent by the breem.

Loud steps resonated on the floor. Large hands were suddenly there, grabbing him and Smokescreen wailed like a Sparkling as he was turned over and lifted and hold in two powerful, unforgiving arms. He kicked. He screamed. He cried. He screamed again. What, the Autobot wouldn’t have been able to say. Recriminations, most likely. Accusations of lying. Accusation of just messing with his head. Insults, most certainly. And just… just primitive, hurt, instinctive shouts filled with all the confusion he was feeling.

Megatron didn’t say anything. He didn’t hit him back. He just grunted whenever Smokescreen managed to land a fist on a sensitive bit of plating -- and that didn’t last long, because at some point the Autobot’s wrists were grabbed by a single hand and held firmly until all he could do was shake in rage and pain and scream louder, to the point of hissing statics. Smokescreen was utterly unaware of the soft rocking motion until his grief and turmoil abated slightly, and when he did, embarrassment made him keen even louder. He curled on himself as well as Megatron’s hold allowed him to, and he paid no attention to the soft ‘hush’ the Warlord repeated. He didn’t care for them, or for anything the Warlord might have been sprouting. Lies. Those were all lies.

Lies which sounded too much like truth for him to truly fight them.

Optimus Prime was his Carrier. Or rather, the mech he had once been before becoming a Prime -- and he had to have been someone before being the Prime and the Autobots leader, he hadn’t just sprouted out of the ground, why didn’t Smokescreen thought about it before and why did no one spoke of it and oh his head was turning and his processor was cloudy and he wanted he wanted he wanted…!

He didn’t know when Megatron carried him over to the berth, nor when he sat and slid Smokescreen under the mesh cover while remaining at his side, the Autobot’s cheek pressing against his chest as he sat propped against a pile of pillows. He didn’t know either when the white, giant (by human standards) stuffed bear was tucked in his arms but suddenly Megatron wasn’t holding his wrists anymore and Smokescreen was holding the toy against him in a vice-like grip. It was instinct more than anything which made him bury his face in the fluffy, soft synthetic material of the plush in order to muffle his sobs and wails and perhaps hide himself from Megatron, whose optics he still felt on him, unmoving.

One arm was solidly passed around his shoulder, the other rested on his hip, and it felt almost good because Megatron’s body felt warm, his Spark felt warm, his presence felt reassuring and it was so wrong because Megatron was a monster and he had no business being all solid and reassuring like Optimus Prime supposedly was and should have been for Smokescreen and he needed to stop thinking about it because if he did he was going to head down into hysteria once again and he couldn’t just do that and he hated how Megatron’s EM field was covering him, blanketing him and trying to make him feel secure like a Creator’s Spark did with its Creation’s own and it was normal his own was reacting since Megatron was his Sire even if he didn’t want him to be and he really really hated it because slag it was starting to work since his body was slightly less tense and his doorwings relaxed even if he was still sobbing and…

And he wanted to stop hurting. He wanted something, anything to make him feel secure or calm once more.

Which was when he noticed the voice.

Megatron’s.

Smokescreen uncurled a little, still sobbing -- although their intensity had reduced due to Megatron’s flaring his EM field at him and forcibly calming him down -- and perked up, trying to decipher what the Warlord was saying. He was talking… but he wasn’t talking to Smokescreen.

It took him a moment more to realize the hand on his hip wasn’t here and that Megatron was holding a datapad on which a bookfile was slowly scrolling down and the Warlord was… telling the story aloud. Reading to Smokescreen as caretakers in the Youth Center used to. He was reading him a berth time story.

No. Not a story. A poem. Smokescreen’s doorwings fluttered. He recognized the text; it was one of Dee’s poems, one of the very last ones if he wasn’t wrong -- which he might be, Dee’s work hadn’t been clearly dated, though they were all from pre-war and he wondered what the mech had become. Probably dead. Smokescreen’s grasp on the teddy bear relaxed. Megatron was speaking in a clear voice, but Smokescreen didn’t listen to the words. He just listened to the tone and the harmonics, and they way they fitted and were slowly lulling him away from his emotional distress. Another side effect from his parent’s Spark in such a close proximity, he guessed, because he didn’t normally care for Megatron’s voice (for his lies).

But the voice, the semi-obscurity -- when had the lights been turned off? -- and the text, they all felt right for some reason. So he burrowed deeper against Megatron, despite his CPU whispering he shouldn’t, shuttered his optics and listened without listening as the Warlord’s voice started to lull him toward recharge, too drained to do anything else.

In his mind, he kept imagining long, dark galleries with shards of energon crystals shining like so many stars, so close but so far away, unreachable but reassuringly sending down their light on him as he walked an otherwise long, dark path toward an unknown goal…


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time, but don't worry, the next will be longer. :)

In the aftermath of the revelation of his Carrier, Smokescreen became even quieter. Megatron started to break the pattern which he had started to form, coming and dropping to see his captive (his Creation) the very next day. He didn’t speak, though, and neither did Smokescreen. They just looked at each other in silence until Megatron growled and left.

He did so again the next solar cycle and then the next, and Smokescreen had the dim impression the Warlord was waiting for something. Perhaps for Smokescreen to actually ask him to stay? Who knew. If so, he was probably disappointed -- or perhaps not. Smokescreen didn’t dare and try to imagine what the Warlord was thinking.

He didn’t come for dinner on the fourth solar cycle, further breaking the pattern, but Smokescreen didn’t care. There wasn’t even a meal, just a cube of energon and a tray full of goodies Nestor gently put on his thighs and invited him to take as many as he wished. Smokescreen had eaten them all, chuckling bitterly at his ‘sweet tooth’ which the Vehicons knew how to exploit in order to get him to refuel properly.

The rest of the time, he read or just browsed through the bookfiles in order to not think. And he recharged a lot, like in the first few solar cycles of his imprisonment. Reading was losing its appeal and he wished he could have just jump out of this berth, run out of this room, transform and just race. To where, he had no idea, but just… race. It would have calmed and emptied his mind far more easily, but it was impossible. He couldn’t ask for his legs back… well, he could have, but he already knew the answer. Megatron was banking on him being amputated to keep him in line and unable to escape him, so unless he was certain Smokescreen wouldn’t run away, he wouldn’t order his medic to repair him.

Which basically meant Smokescreen wouldn’t do anything requiring walking or running in the foreseeable future. Megatron wouldn’t let go, and Smokescreen… Smokescreen wanted his freedom. He wanted out and away from Megatron at the very least, because even when he was silent and not trying to convince Smokescreen he was telling the truth (he was; Smokescreen knew he was, even if he didn’t want) he still remained the symbol of everything Smokescreen feared, of everything he had always despised. Even if he tried to be ‘nice’ and gave Smokescreen ‘gifts’. Speaking of… 

The white teddy bear rested by his pillow most of the time, and Smokescreen sometimes spend megacycles staring at it, tentatively petting it to assure himself the toy was here and real. The inanimate object almost felt like a person, and if that wasn’t a warning sign he was becoming mad, he didn’t know what it was. Once or twice, he had throw it away from him in fear or in disgust. Other times, he had held it against his frame in a crushing embrace and tried to forget where the present had come from.

By the sixth solar cycle after they spoke of Orion’s identity, Smokescreen took a decision.

When Megatron came once more, they started their staring match as usual. The ending, though, went slightly differently. As Megatron finally turned to leave, Smokescreen spoke out.

“Sire?” Megatron paused, tensing. Smokescreen almost hated himself for saying it, but since the truth was what it was, and since he really needed Megatron to agree… “Sire, may I ask for art supplies? If you have any available, that’s it?” Polite, short, to the point, and he had acknowledged Megatron aloud as his Creator. The question was, would it be sufficient to sway the mech?

“Art furnitures? And why exactly, little mech?” The Warlord had turned and was now watching him with appraising optics.

Smokescreen shrugged, his optics gazing down, not daring to look and stare at him in the optics. “I’m bored, Sire. Reading is nice, but… it doesn’t work for me for long period. I’d like to be able to sketch and paint. It’s a hobby.” Or it used to be, a long while ago.

“Indeed? And what other hobbies do you have, my son?” Was the Warlord genuinely interested? It was hard to say.

“Racing,” was the easy answer. “But I don’t think this is an available option those days.” He didn’t look at the stumps of his legs, but he moved them beneath the cover to remind the Warlord of their presence.

“I see.” Megatron didn’t say anything more. He just looked at Smokescreen for a moment, probably calculating the pros and cons. “Your Carrier enjoyed art,” he said abruptly, and Smokescreen looked up. “He loved going to museums and stare at supposed masterpieces, at any rate. He never picked up a pen himself, though.”

“I’m not my Carrier,” Smokescreen said simply. “Nor am I you. I’m my own mech.”

Which was true. So Megatron was his Sire, and ‘Orion’ (Optimus Prime?) his Carrier? What did it matter in the end? They hadn’t raised him, hadn’t transmitted him their sets of values. Smokescreen had raised himself, or rather been raised by someone else entirely, and the Pit if he let Megatron mold him into something he wasn’t. Something the Warlord must have known, or else he would have tried to recruit him as a Decepticon, something he never did. Had he realized the moment he had laid his optics on Smokescreen that he would never wear the purple brand? Probably. Which explained a lot of things about his behavior, but Smokescreen was past the point of caring.

He was acknowledging Megatron as his Sire -- Primus, he truly was the Decepticons’ Prince, wasn’t he? -- and the Warlord couldn’t ask more of him. Smokescreen wouldn’t allow him to… or at least he’d try not to.

Megatron’s lips quirked. “That much I had already noticed, little mech.” And he left without another word.

They didn’t speak of Optimus anymore, even when he came back the next day and when they had yet another dinner together.

But the first thing Smokescreen sketched when, the solar cycle following their exchange, Jeeves handed him a small table with foldable feet to put on his thighs, sheets of paper, pens and paint, was a portrait of his leader (his Carrier?) smiling benevolently at something only he knew. It wasn’t very good -- the holos he had seen of the Prime had often been damaged, or focused on the face of their leader, and he hadn’t been on Team Prime for long before his abduction and with only his memories to help him, some details of the Prime’s frame were slightly fuzzy. But his face and his optics were perfectly reproduced, and that was what counted.

He made sure Megatron saw the picture too.

The Warlord didn’t say anything or budge. Smokescreen didn’t quite smile either. But he looked at the portrait fondly, and imagined that someday, perhaps, he would see the real mech again, barging in this room to free him and carry him away.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All things come to an end...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, ladies and gents. The last chapter.  
> Some of you might recognize the dialogues of the episode 'Regeneration' -- I had to track down the transcripts of the episode, but it was worth it. XD

Freedom, when it finally appeared to Smokescreen, came in a most unexpected way.

It came not in the blaze of blasters discharges as a group of Autobot raided the Nemesis, kicked open the door and took him away back to base, no. It came in the middle of the night, almost like a dream.

One moment he had been soundly in recharge, curled around the teddy bear which had become a weird source of comfort, and the next someone was shaking his shoulder to wake him up. Optics blurry and slowly rebooting, he turned slightly, expecting to see one of the Vehicon servants or perhaps Megatron himself. None of them were in the habit of waking him up like that, but they were the only people he had seen since he had been lock up.

To his surprise, it was neither of them.

Red optics in a yellow face were looking at him, shining with an expression Smokescreen couldn’t identify. It was nothing like Megatron’s, though, and the young Autobot didn’t scream for help or anything. He just sat, chasing away part of his drowsiness by rubbing his optics frantically. He never had had visitors before aside of Megatron -- probably because his ‘room’ had been slated as off-limit to everyone but the Warlord, not that Smokescreen had any way to know for sure -- , and so the presence of the other mech here surprised him.

“Dreadwing? Wh…?”

A finger was put on his lips to silence him. “Hush,” came the whispered reply. Smokescreen felt himself go very apprehensive suddenly, hand tightening into the mesh cover draped over his lower frame. Dreadwing’s presence wasn’t normal and where were Nestor and Jeeves? What did the winged warrior want with him? His mind was conjuring scary scenarios before Dreadwing spoke again. “Do you wish to return to the Autobot, young Prince? Don’t say anything, just nod or shake your head.”

Smokescreen froze. Wh…? Was Dreadwing serious? Was he actually offering to, to let him go? To help him escape? Jaw dropping, he leaned forward eagerly, but his nervousness tripled. It had to be trick of some sort, he thought desperately. Perhaps a test from Megatron to see if he was being obedient, sufficiently brainwashed, or just because the Warlord was a sadist looking for kicks! If it was a test, then his answer might very well land him in trouble.

Still, the mere possibility, so small as it was, to actually escape the Nemesis, to escape Megatron, to return to his faction…! Optics wide, he gave a tiny nod. Even in the dim light of the room, the move didn’t escape Dreadwing. The winged warrior’s lips thinned and he nodded back sharply. He leaned closer to Smokescreen, and the Autobot was startled to see there was something large strapped to the Decepticon’s back. Two something, in fact; a case of sort, and… Was a hammer? A very, very big hammer. Smokescreen swallowed. What was going on here?

Two arms opened, hands reaching for him. “Come. I’ll carry you.”

Smokescreen shuffled uneasily, pushing asides his mesh cover and wondering dimly if he wasn’t doing the worst mistake of his life yet. For what he knew, the Decepticon was going to carry him over to Megatron, who would be most disappointed his Creation wanted to leave the ‘comfort’ of his quarters and his Sire’s ‘protection’. Or he was going to kill him to get back at Megatron, who knew how the Decepticons worked. Or he could try to… to force himself on Smokescreen in some desert part of the ship. That one thought made the young Autobot swallow dryly, but it was too late to have regret. Dreadwing had already picked him up gingerly in a bridal-carry and was already prowling toward the door.

“Ah… wait,” he whispered, looking back at the teddy bear lying on the berth. Dreadwing glanced in the same direction and frowned.

“ _You want it_?” he mouthed.

Smokescreen hesitated, optics still focused on the stuffed toy. He shouldn’t… He really shouldn’t. The fact it was a gift from Megatron of all the mechs should have been enough to make him want to throw it away. However, a tiny part of him felt attachment to the toy, and it had brought him comfort. It had become… important, despite the circumstances in which he had received it. So after a moment, he nodded. It was barely a nod, just a tiny gesture, but it was sufficient.

Dreadwing muttered something under his breath, probably an insult, before putting Smokescreen back to sit on the edge of the berth, grabbing the case strapped to his back and then the toy. Smokescreen didn’t have time to really get a glimpse at what was already inside -- it was too dark for that -- but he heard a metallic sound. Not that he cared much.

His optics fell briefly on the pile of drawings he had made those last few solar cycles -- pure dumb luck; in the dark, he could only see their outline, but he knew where they were and in which order.

Optimus’ portrait was at the top.

For a moment, Smokescreen considered grabbing it as well, for it was the only item here asides of the teddy bear he felt a smidge of attachment to. But something in him argued against it, and so when Dreadwing lifted him again, he said nothing. Just pressed his cheek against the blue jet’s chest and let him carry him out of his gilded cage.

The two Vehicons usually guarding the door at night and serving him were lying on the floor in a heap. Dreadwing put Smokescreen gently on the floor before dragging the two bodies inside.

“Are they… are they dead?” Smokescreen whispered softly, Spark fluttering. They may have been Decepticons and his ‘jailers’, but Nestor and Jeeves had been correct with him, and he didn’t exactly wish them harm. They were just obeying orders, after all.

Dreadwing shook his head as he locked the door again. “Unconscious. They won’t wake up for a few megacycles. I’m not in an habit of killing my allies.” He frowned, scowling. “Even if my allies betrayed me first.”

Smokescreen would have asked what he meant, but Dreadwing was lifting him up from the floor yet again to carry him over. The corridors of the Nemesis were empty, and the Autobot wondered if it was a result of the late hour, or if it was because Dreadwing took care of following the most abandoned path to wherever he was taking Smokescreen. Probably a combination of both, he decided as he buried his helm in the crook of the winged warrior’s shoulder. He still felt drowsy, and it was almost a fight to keep his optics lighted.

They reached the flight deck quickly without coming across anyone, and Smokescreen inhaled the fresh air almost greedily. How long at it been since he had last felt the wind or seen the sky? He looked up at the starry night sky, watching the little far away lights with ravissement. Dee’s poem about the eternal night of the mines briefly came to the foremost of his mind, but he quickly pushed it asides. This wasn’t poesy, it was the real thing. It was so beautiful…

“I’ll have to transform to fly,” Dreadwing grunted in a low voice. “You’ll have to get a good grip on my alt mode in order for me to carry you. Think you can do it, or do you want to use that?” he said as he reached for his subspace pocket and took out two objects he showed at Smokescreen. Two flat disks the size of the Decepticon’s palms, with straps to secure them to one’s hands.

The Autobot blinked. “Magnets?” Dreadwing nodded, and Smokescreen bit his lips. He would have liked to say bravely he didn’t need them, that he could grab on the winged warrior and fly with him into the unknown. Still… he didn’t think his hands would be strong enough at this point. “I’ll take them,” he finally said, and Dreadwing dropped them in his hands. He had them secured in no time even as the Decepticon warrior gently put him on the floor and transformed, ready to take off, the hammer and the case resting between his wings.

Gingerly, Smokescreen half dragged and half lifted himself until he was lying flat on Dreadwing’s altmode, activating the magnets to secure himself. “Are you sure you can carry me?” he asked worriedly.

A throaty chuckle answered him. “Do not worry, young Prince. I know the limits of my strengths, and we won’t have so far to fly.”

Was it bad, Smokescreen mused as they took off, that he wasn’t fighting the ‘Prince’ appellation anymore? He wanted to bark he was no Prince, but since Megatron was actually his Sire, he supposed he couldn’t exactly refute it.

The wind blowed all over him as Dreadwing flew fast. Letting his cheek rest against the plating of the jet, Smokescreen shuttered his optics in contentment. His Spark beat fast. Out, finally. Not yet free, because he was still in a Decepticon’s custody, but out, and getting further away from Megatron with each passing klik. He didn’t know exactly when he sunk in light recharge, but after a moment, everything became black.

He came to his senses when a hand once again shook him, albeit more gently than the first time. Smokescreen groaned and stretched his arms, rubbing his optics again and found himself surprised to be sitting, back against a large rock. Dreadwing was crouching before him, his expression neutral. Smokescreen looked around; they were in the middle a rocky, deserted place where a few flora species were growing. Mist rose around them, and the sun was shyly peeking behind cloud. It was one of Earth’s early morning, he guessed.

What surprised him more was the fact Dreadwing had apparently landed, transformed and dropped his cargo somewhere -- because Smokescreen didn’t see either the case of the hammer near -- without waking him up. Uh. He must have been more tired than he had first thought… or some of his earlier suspicions were correct, and his evening energon was indeed laced with sedatives.

“Where are we?” he asked the taller mech, his doorwings fluttering as he looked around again.

“Somewhere,” the winger warrior grunted. “I’ve called the Autobots. They should arrive shortly through a Bridge.”

Smokescreen’s doorwings stiffened, and his face broke into a large smile. “You… you did? Why?” he added after a few second, immediately becoming suspicious. The blue jet didn’t answer. He just looked away. A burst of light was starting to form a short distance away, heralding the formation of a Bridge. The flier reached out for Smokescreen and lifted him.

“Hey, careful here!” the younger mech sputtered as Dreadwing paused and make him shift in his arms. Smokescreen’s cheeks flushed at the thought of appearing carried like a new Bonded in front of his fellow Autobots, but at the same time, he found he didn’t really care. Not if it meant he could finally go back… ‘home’, he supposed.

The tell-tale sound of familiar engines almost overwhelmed him and for a moment, he thought he was going to cry.

“Drop your weapons!” That was Bulkhead’s voice. Smokescreen fought back a sob. So close, so close.

“Where is he hiding?” That mumble, that was Arcee.

Dreadwing walked closer, slowly, and Smokescreen tightened his hold over his neck. Here came the moment of truth.

“I am not here to fight, but to give you this,” the winged warrior said as they emerged from the mist and came face to face with the Autobots, all weapons out and pointed in their direction. A shocked gasp escaped several of them, and weapons were immediately lowered as they took in Smokescreen’s sight.

“Smokey!” “Smokescreen! Primus, his legs…!” “Beep!" “Di-Smokescreen!”

Dreadwing stopped advancing, optics focused on the group. Optimus Prime was there in an instant, all weapons discarded, arms reaching out to take Dreadwing’s burden away from him. The Decepticon let Smokescreen slide out of his arms and into the Prime’s without a word. Smokescreen’s optics filled with cleansing fluid.

“Sir,” he said brokenly, Optimus Prime’s optics plunging into his. Perhaps he should have said ‘Carrier’ if what Megatron had said had indeed been the truth. He hadn’t lied about being his Sire, as much as Smokescreen wished he had. And the Prime had started to say another designation when he saw him, hadn’t he? Since Smokescreen knew he must have had another name a long time ago, his Carrier would know it. But even if it was true… He couldn’t bring himself to call the Prime that. Not yet. Not now. Not when Optimus hadn’t said anything to confirm they were related. And even if they were, what if the Prime didn’t want him?

“Smokescreen.” That please, rich, reassuring voice soothed his Spark immediately, erasing his worries. “Are you alright, Youngling?” Not ‘soldier’, just Youngling. Acknowledging his age, not his function. Smokescreen shook his head mutely, lips shaking as he tried to formulate an answer, to no avail. He settled for a sob before burying his face into Optimus’ shoulder.

Here, he was safe. His Spark knew it and sang, beating at the same rhythm as the Prime’s own. He could feel it through the heavy, reinforced chest plates, and it resonated deep inside him… just like Megatron had. His tightened his hold around Optimus’ neck. It wasn’t yet a proof, but it came close. Even if the Prime didn’t acknowledge or confirm Megatron’s words, it felt good to be in his arms. To feel the beat of this Spark, so warm and loving… toward him, he could sense it. He couldn’t help it; he sobbed harder.

“Dreadwing… why?” the Prime asked, his hold on Smokescreen’s body never wavering even as he heard the Youngling try to muffle his sobs. The weight in his arms felt good to hold, and his Spark was reaching out for the younger mech’s own, which he now knew was his. Primus, to think he hadn’t recognized his own Sparkling right away! And he wouldn’t have known if Megatron couldn’t resist calling to taunt him and gloat. To say he had been horrified was an understatement. Having Di… Smokescreen back was something he hadn’t thought possible and he was tempted to drop all form of decorum and just hug the Youngling for dear life without a care. His optics, however, never left the winged warrior’s face as he watched them.

Dreadwing rumbled. “A shadow of disgrace has been cast upon the Decepticons. It is a cause I no longer wish to be part of,” he said simply. He looked at Smokescreen with a neutral expression that didn’t escape Optimus, though the Prime refrained himself from asking why. “I bring you the young Prince, as well as those,” he added, making a gesture toward the ground to his left, where he had let the Forge of Solus Prime and the case rest.

“The Forge of Solus Prime,” Arcee whispered. “What’s in the case?” she added suspiciously.

“The young Prince’s T-cog and his legs. As well as an item he wished to bring back with him.” Smokescreen’s tensed, optics onlining suddenly as he looked over his shoulder and to Dreadwing’s face. The Decepticon glanced down at him, still looking carefully neutral. “Lord Megatron had them in storage to be reattached at a later period. They’re in perfect state and should be easy to reconnect, provided you have a good medic to lead the operation.”

Smokescreen almost didn’t hear the last words. His T-cogs. His legs. He… he wasn’t going to be helpless anymore. Soon, he’d be able to walk, and run, and transform, and drive! He laughed briefly, the sound light and heavy at the same time, relieved but slightly hysterical. Optimus rocked him, and Smokescreen buried his helm against his plating again before he could laugh or cry.

Bulkhead had his weapons out again, judging by the sound. “Could be rigged to blow.” Smokescreen’s Spark sunk. Was it possible?

Optimus waved at them, briefly, returning to hold Smokescreen securely against his frame. Obviously, he didn’t believe in a double-cross, and Smokescreen felt secure in the knowledge; if Optimus thought it was safe, then it had to be. “Dreadwing, what do you ask in return?”

A grunt. “Only that you use it wisely.” No word about Smokescreen. He wondered why. Really, he could perhaps get why the Decepticon had returned the hammer -- the Forge, whatever -- but why free Smokescreen? Especially since he called him ‘Prince’, and so acknowledged him as Megatron’s offspring? Dreadwing was Megatron’s Second, right? Logically, shouldn’t he try to keep Smokescreen on board of the Nemesis for his ‘protection’?

… Unless he had come to the conclusion Smokescreen was better off with the Autobots. Or perhaps it was revenge against Megatron, in a strange, twisted way. Smokescreen couldn’t tell and at this point, he couldn’t care less; he was too tired to think straight.

“And? The Omega keys?” Arcee was still sharp, focused. Far more than any of the others, except perhaps Bumblebee, but the scout was the silent type for more than one reason.

“In Megatron's possession, under heaviest guard.” Was Dreadwing short, to the point answer. Meaning, Smokescreen had been less heavily guarded. Perhaps because no one had expected him to try and run. Without weapons and legs, it wasn’t as if he had been considered a threat after all, and he had been pliant enough these last few solar cycles that Megatron probably hadn’t thought he was up to trouble. Smokescreen hadn’t been, truth to be told.

A mumble from Bulkhead. “Scream did make a deal with the Cons.”

A growl escaped Dreadwing’s vocalizer, lo and threatening, and weapons were pointed on him yet again until Optimus gave his mechs a sharp look to make them desist. He looked at the blue jet with curiosity but also a sudden understanding. What had he understood? Smokescreen would be unable to tell.

“Dreadwing… If you don’t wish to be part of the Decepticon cause, then I appeal to you again. Join us and help end this conflict once and for all.”

The winged warrior just shook his head. “Betraying my kind is not the same as accepting yours, Prime. And speaking of kind, you should hold your own close,” he added with an indecipherable look at Smokescreen. Optimus’ hold tightened. Smokescreen swallowed.

“I do intend to,” the Prime rumbled neutrally.

Dreadwing nodded sharply. “Good. Then I trust the young Prince has nothing to fear.”

He turned away, took a few steps until a ledge from which he let himself drop, igniting his transformation sequence and flying away fast.

There was a moment of silence, of stillness, and suddenly the Autobots were surrounding their Prime, peering at Smokescreen, touching him lightly on the shoulders, taking all at once -- even Bee, with his series of beeps and clicks -- and Smokescreen uncurled a bit, smiling at them in a tired, strained manner.

“I’m fine guys,” he mumbled. And he was, sort of. Sure, he was missing his legs, but it didn’t hurt. He had been well fueled, he hadn’t been tortured, at least not physically. Even the mental and moral anguish had resulted more from his denial and his isolation than a true plan to destroy him. He was just… exhausted, mentally and physically.

One of Optimus’ hands cupped his cheek, and Smokescreen looked up at him. Blue optics so similar to his own watched him with worry and care, with love even, and emotion bumbled in the younger mech’s throat.

“Autobots, take the Forge and the case. Ratchet, open a Bridge,” he ordered loudly over his comm. He looked down at Smokescreen again. “We’re going home, son,” he whispered.

The world stopped turning. Here it was. The acknowledgement which was sealing his fate, finishing to destroy all his all certitudes to replace them by new ones. So many questions were piling in his CPU: why had Optimus left him? How had he ended in Praxus? Why hadn’t the Prime recognized him? Why did he and Megatron had ever been a couple? Had he been planed? Had he been desired? If so, then why…?

But nevermind. Those questions would have to wait. He just couldn’t blurt them out like that. He… They needed privacy to truly talk, Smokescreen realized. Whatever would be say between them wouldn’t concern the Autobots; it would concern their… family.

Smokescreen reached out and grabbed Optimus’ hand, holding it with as much strength as he could. “Thank you, Carrier,” he whispered back. Optimus’ optics flashed, and if Smokescreen had thought he had been held tightly until then, now the Prime could have crushed him.

“There’s so much we have to talk about.”

“I… look forward to that,” Smokescreen answered as the Bridge opened before them. Optimus nodded and took his first step toward the Bridge. Toward their base. Toward their home.

Head lolling, Smokescreen shuttered his optics and smiled. It was good to be back where he belonged.

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep. This is over -- well, almost; I still have an additional oneshot ready, plus an half-finished second and vague thought for a third. Don't hold your breath for the second and third, though, because as things are for the moments, I'm afraid they'll never get done. :(
> 
> I admit, I had wanted to make a longer fic at first, and take it in a whole other direction. I had considered an AU with Decepticons winners and more scenes with Smokescreen, Megatron and eventually Optimus.
> 
> Sadly, this fic was written during a very rocky month of May, were my mood played roller-coaster as I was caught up in the emotional turmoil of nasty family business. And it's sadly not over, though it had (temporarily?) calmed down. As such, I decided to cut my losses and make it a shorter fic -- which is a good thing on the whole, or 'Little Prince' would probably have ended as one of my many unfinished projects.
> 
> Nonetheless, I'd like to thank you for all the comments, kudos and general support you gave this fic, and I hope the ending was to your tastes. I should post the additional oneshot soon. Stay tuned.
> 
> PS: if you're curious about why it took so much time for the events from 'Inside Job' to the bit of 'Regeneration' I used to unfold, let's just pretend Starscream took more time to decide what he was going to do and that the Autobots, focused on trying to find Smokescreen, might not have answered Starscream's first call for help. Or the second. Or the third. As to why Dreadwing helped Smokescreen... well, I might be the writer, but I don't pretend to be in every character's head. XD


End file.
